


About Love And Its Shadows

by crepesandoysters



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, But mostly angst, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Happy Ending, I don't guarantee the safety of children books about them at the end of this fic, M/M, Minor Violence, Pining Aziraphale (Good Omens), Pining Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Seriously the angst is bad beware the angst, The Christmas Krampus is a demon and they are a literal killjoy, The pining will make you want to chop down a pine out of frustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27992430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crepesandoysters/pseuds/crepesandoysters
Summary: Christmas time truly brings the good cheer and makes you want to throw all your cares away. Even Crowley and Aziraphale, having prevented Armageddon (well, they were there while it was prevented), fall victim to the charm of the holiday season and begin to hope that they might be finally free to create their own future together. And that future seems to come around in the form of hot cocoa and Christmas lights, walks through the snow and sweet dinners together, stolen touches and looks as the angel and demon slowly forget what it means to be alone.Only, such a delightful future does not come as easy as they hoped, once an infamous demon from Hell is sent to Earth with a very specific job. And they have two exact targets in mind.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 26





	1. Hark how the bells, Loud danger bells

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Christmas fic bringing angst as a holiday present that nobody asked for but you are getting anyway. The figure of the Krampus in this story is loosely based on the Central European myth of a half-goat creature with the same name coming to scare children during Christmas time. If you are looking for some light holiday-themed reading, children books about this ain't it, trust me. The Krampus found here unfortunately is much more ambitious and efficient than their legend counterpart, so they will bring about some serious mayhem.
> 
> I will be updating this fic twice a week, with the last chapter coming out around Christmas Day (if my math-deprived brain can do its calculations correctly). The length of each chapter may vary based on the specific pain levels, according to the Angst Measuring Chart (not provided).

The fear was gone.

That was the first true change Crowley noticed after the Antichrist boy - Adam, his brain supplied much too late in his thought process - made Armageddon pop away like an innocuous soap bubble.

Through the racing weeks and months, he began feeling a sureness in his steps that he remembered only ever faking for his entire existence. His lungs seemed to have finally gotten rid of a terrible weight he had never realised bearing, and his laughs were longer and truer than ever before. He could easily recognise what the humans liked to call _freedom_. It was an exhilarating sensation, nearly intoxicating as he received it all at once with no apparent catches.

Crowley would have feared getting himself lost in the immense space that had suddenly opened up in his existence hadn’t he had an angel’s smile to keep him anchored.

Aziraphale’s smile changed as well, slowly but surely. It shed off something that neither of them were willing to name and, where before Crowley had thought it glowed with angelic light, he now saw it shine as bright as the most powerful star with a light that was only purely Aziraphale. The demon found himself being the object of that smile so often that it became nearly impossible leaving the angel’s side. He would grip the door handle to exit the bookshop and then turn around one last time only to be trapped again by the warmth and affection of that beam, his hand slipping away from the handle of its own accord. As he tried to leave in the heart of many nights, Aziraphale only needed to pout and deliver the final blow with a tiny smile for his brain to erase itself and make him flop back down on the armchair.

“Are you planning on ever letting me walk out of the door, angel, or should I consider myself part of the furniture from now on?” commented Crowley on a late September evening, as they had taken to combat the increasing chill in the air with red wine and freshly baked scones - which might or might not have appeared in the bookshop from the bakery at the end of the street at the same time as enough money to pay for all the scones baked that day had found its way in the cash register.

Aziraphale shot him an innocent look that would not have seemed out of place on a round cherub’s face in a painting. “I do not know what you mean, my dear. You have only just gotten here.”

“I barely ever left this sofa since last night”

“Oh my, have you now?” Aziraphale’s smile dangerously resembled a knowing smirk now, as he poured himself a generous glass of wine without even raising his gaze, “Well, then you won’t mind staying for a bit longer, I presume.”

Crowley felt a chill running down his spine, and it took quite a lot of concentration to maintain his voice steady. “I think my plants will begin to get jealous if you keep me here any longer.”

“Now, considering how you speak to those poor creatures, I do believe they will be grateful for this well-deserved relief.”

Crowley tilted his head forward to make the sunglasses fall down the bridge of his nose so as to send the angel a pointed look. Aziraphale had been horrified when he had first witnessed exactly how Crowley took care of his house plants, and, since then, he had lost no occasion to remind him of his disapproval over the whole affair.

“They will fall out of line, then” he growled, sending the hand that was holding the wine glass in a large semicircle that gifted the carpet below with an abundant amount of red wine.

It was nothing that a snap of the angel’s fingers could not fix, but he still shot the demon a loud “Crowley!”. The exclamation held no true indignation or anger, so the demon’s response was a simple shrug of apology and a wide grin flashed in his direction. He did, however, move to set down his glass. Aziraphale must have misinterpreted the gesture, because he straightened up as quickly as a lightning bolt and reached over to grab Crowley’s arm before he could lean away from the table.

“Don’t leave just yet, Crowley!” It took a few heartbeats for him to widen his eyes in realisation of what he had just done, and he began to stammer to fill the tense silence, “I mean, why don’t you stay for, uh, some more wine or scones. I know you don’t enjoy them as much as I do, but we could share a- a few. And it is, oh so dreadfully cold out there, wouldn’t want to send you outside in such a weather and-”

Crowley pressed a hand over Aziraphale’s own, the point of contact still sending sparks up and down his arm. “M’ not going anywhere, angel.”

Aziraphale visibly relaxed, the lines of worry over his face smoothing out in an instant, and he squeezed Crowley’s arm one last time before letting his hand slip away. Crowley had to bite his tongue in order to stop himself from chasing after that hand.

A tentative smile returned to the angel’s face as he murmured, “Jolly good then, yes. I, I would very much miss your company if you were to leave so soon.”

Crowley leaned forward on the sofa, placing his arms on the tips of his knees and staring at Aziraphale intently. “I mean,” he repeated in a low voice. “I am not going _anywhere_ , Aziraphale.”

A few more racing heartbeats. “I am not leaving you.”

Aziraphale looked stunned, his mouth falling slightly open without any sound following the motion. And then there it was, the smile that Crowley so delightedly fell victim to whenever it graced the angel’s face. It was a smile that, he knew, only existed for him, a smile that had been forced back and repressed for centuries, millennia until Armageddon - or more like, the absence of it - had rendered it free. He could see reflected in the angel’s face the same freedom he felt growing with each passing day, and his heart performed some quite impressive somersaults in his chest.

Then, Aziraphale said, “I know, my dear” with as much fondness in his voice as a human corporation would allow and Crowley’s gaze fell on his lips. The desire to kiss that sweet smile until it would attach to his own mouth burned so strong to grasp his heart in a painful hold and make him jump back on his seat, his nails diving into the fabric of the sofa as he gripped the edge of it almost frantically. The sudden urge left him breathless and with a bitter taste in his mouth, a familiar weight setting down on his chest once more.

Then, it dawned on him while he squeezed his eyes tightly in an attempt to release the knot in his chest and fended off the angel’s attempts to ask him if he was alright. He put on a smile that was meant to be casual, but only felt fake and empty.

 _Then_ , with his mind trying to convince him that he should be content with what he already had with Aziraphale, should not ask more of him, not that much more, he realised. Maybe not all of his fears were gone after all.

✦

Time seemed to run even faster after that night, racing with the impending winter to determine which would hit London with a bigger force. The steely cold winds running along the streets and over the roofs delighted themselves in making winter hats fly away and rain fall in peculiar patterns, leaving passers-by unsure of how to best protect themselves against the whims of the weather. The rapidly falling temperatures soon forced people to hurry along the roads in an attempt to escape the biting chill in the air and reach their warm destinations as quickly as possible. The fast-paced movement did not particularly bother Crowley, who was already quite used to fast paces and very glad to show it in his driving style.

Through it all, however, he made sure to stay alert when moving around and keep an eye out for any unexpected presences, be it angelic or demonic. But as weeks passed by and stretched into months, he began to unconsciously let his guard down, his heightened senses no longer scanning the crowd outside the bookshop or his apartment as much. After all, the only presence he truly cared about was already by his side.

Aziraphale, in turn, seemed to cling on to his worry almost as much as he clung on to Crowley’s presence, still occasionally jumping from his seat when the doorbell of the bookshop rang at the entrance of one of the rare customers. In those occasions, his panicked look would dissipate only when he could lay his eyes on the demon’s flaming red hair and gentle smirk, ensuring himself of his presence. So, Crowley took to spending a major portion of his time in the bookshop and, more precisely, as close to Aziraphale as he would let him - which turned out to be very close indeed when he dozed off one afternoon and woke up to his head leaning on the angel’s shoulder and a soft arm around his own shoulders. He had to miracle away quite a few bruises after he tumbled backwards out of sheer shock and took an entire pile of heavy books with him.

That shock, however, was soon surmounted by a much bigger one on the morning that a man dressed in a finely tailored black suit walked through the entrance, passing a ringed hand through his slick hair and carrying an enormous amount of mud inside. Crowley could instantly sense Aziraphale’s annoyance and exasperation, as he stood up from behind the counter and moved in front of the stranger before he could take any more muddy steps inside.

“I thought I had made it abundantly clear that this bookshop is not for sale.” Aziraphale’s voice was calm and clear, but the ice in it was evident as Crowley realised that this man must have been one of those mindless human criminals still attempting to scare the angel into selling the bookshop to their boss. He rolled his eyes and started to move toward the entrance. _Wait for him to say how flammable the bookshop is,_ he thought, as the man spoke again.

“Oh I’m not here for that, mind you. I’m just observing this wonderful establishment! What a pity that it is also so very flammable, don’t you think?” _Bingo_ , the demon sneered.

“Yes, quite” replied Aziraphale, completely unfazed. “I will make sure to take very good care of it, then. Have a good day.”

Crowley finally reached the angel’s side and was greeted by a sweet thankful smile, as the stranger’s eyes narrowed and he prepared to say something else. Crowley cut him off with a hiss that was nowhere near a human sound. “Mr. Fell is perfectly ssssatisfied with this establishment and will not be sssselling it to your lot or anyone else.”

He let his tongue assume a forked shape and flicker out of his mouth for a split second for dramatic effect before shooting the man one of his best devilish sneers. The criminal widened his eyes and stumbled back at the sight, his hand fumbling in an attempt to grab the door handle. He managed to turn it and get himself over the threshold after a few seconds, and Crowley was already about to turn around in dismissal when he yelled, “You and your husband cannot keep this shop to yourselves forever, Mr. Fell! We’ll get our hands on it soon enough.”

He then proceeded to bolt down the street, leaving a placid Aziraphale to close the door and a quite shocked Crowley to trip over his own feet at the word “husband” and crash into a bookshelf with a loud thud.

Aziraphale turned to him beaming with delight, apparently unaware of the effect that the man’s words had had on the demon. “Ah, thank you for intervening, dearest. Those men have gotten quite irritating with their constant visits.”

Crowley stared at him with eyes wide in disbelief, wondering how in Heaven’s blasted bollocks wasn’t the angel fazed in the least by having been called his husband. _Husband_. But Aziraphale seemed to be already reflecting on a different matter and eventually concluded his thought process with, “I shall put up a sign to keep them outside.”

He then moved his gaze back to Crowley, whose brain was still screaming _HUSBAND_ in various octaves. “Would you like to go for cocoa, dear?”

The demon let out a shaky breath and tried to muster a somewhat casual smile. “Sure, angel.”

✦

Another month passed and the chilled winds made the decision to abandon their dance with the rain and pick one up with the snow instead. And with the stark white snow piling up on the streets and roofs of London also came colourful lights and decorations, breaking through the darkness of the night and illuminating the city in a show of shifting lights and shapes. Men dressed in red and white clothes with cheap fake beards and even more fake silver bells began to populate the sidewalks of Soho, making it impossible for Crowley to walk to the bookshop without being yelled at in loud “Ho-Ho-Ho” and “Merry Christmas, young man! Spare a penny?”

He did spare a penny for most of them just so they would get out of his sight, but the bearded Santa’s seemed to be relentless. One of them even dared to stick his hand, wrapped in a glove that clearly used to be red but had now assumed a dirty brown shade, through the open car window of his Bentley as he was about to leave the angel’s place almost hitting him in the face and babbling, “How about some change, sir? And, uh, maybe a lift too?”

Crowley was so indignant by the man’s boldness and the sticky fingerprints he was leaving on the Bentley’s interior that he forgot that he could have miracled away himself, the half-drunk Santa, or both of them and instead got into an argument with the gloved hand, trying to shove it out of his car. He was one incoherent babble by the man away from driving off and dragging him by the arm if necessary when Aziraphale, probably having heard the commotion from inside the shop, ran over and calmly led the fuming Santa away, giving Crowley a reproaching look.

“There was really no need for all that show, Crowley” he said gravely, once the demon had taken refuge back inside the bookshop, eyeing the window warily for any sign of other bearded humans.

“He attacked me, Aziraphale! I’m the victim here!”

The angel rolled his eyes and set his mouth in a hard disbelieving line. “Hardly an attack. He stuck his hand through the car window, that’s all.”

“And _ruined_ the Bentley with that horrific glove” replied Crowley in an appalled tone, pointing his finger to the car parked outside, which was still perfectly clean and shiny among the snow, not helping his argument in the least. He gave it a dirty look, making a mental note for himself to try out the same strategy he used with his house plants to get it to help him out during future arguments.

“The Bentley is perfectly fine, Crowley! I think it can handle one not very polite Santa Clause.” Aziraphale’s voice was dripping with sarcasm and the demon was about to respond again when a warm tartan blanket hit him in the face, properly warming and shutting him up at the same time.

“Now,” continued the angel, as Crowley untangled himself from the blanket. “Warm yourself up, stop rambling about your car, and help me set up these Christmas lights, will you?”

Crowley could have easily willed his corporation back to a warmer temperature, but the tartan fabric was soft and comfortable to the touch and it _felt_ like Aziraphale, so he wrapped himself in it, and to Heaven with his dignity as a demon. He raised his head to see the angel hold in his arms an impossible amount of Christmas lights and decorations, so tangled up with each other to appear more like a shapeless blob of plastic, with a huge smile on his face.

“Are we really going to put those around the bookshop?” he asked, feeling an amused grin grow on his face in return. “They do not exactly… _match_ the general tone in here.”

“Nonsense, they will look splendid! It is Christmas, my dear, and I very well intend to celebrate it as much as humanity does.”

Crowley’s grin was getting wider by the second, and, wrapped as he was in the angel’s scent and with the sight of his face lit up more intensely than any Christmas light out there, he was almost overwhelmed by the wave of adoration that rose in his chest. His voice was low and gentle when he replied, “Well then, Christmas celebration it is.”

And so the rest of the day flew by, with an angel and a demon following a human tradition and setting up some very cheap Christmas decorations on top of books, along the bookshelves and even over the central counter. Crowley made sure that the small plastic angel statuette with white wings and a wildly exaggerated golden halo would be perfectly visible at the centre of the string of lights running along the edge. Aziraphale complained a bit when he caught sight of it but in the end left the quite incorrect angelic representation there, and Crowley could have sworn to have seen him smile fondly several times when his gaze fell on it.

The demon, in turn, got a proper warming up when he climbed on an armchair to attach another string of lights on top of a bookshelf and lost his balance, falling right into the angel’s arms, opened wide to catch him, almost as if it were planned. In that moment, with Aziraphale’s warm and steady embrace keeping him up, he did not particularly appreciate the group of carollers passing by the shop’s entrance singing some Christmas song.

_When we finally kiss goodnight, How I’ll hate going out in the storm._

“Are you alright, my dear? You did not hurt yourself falling badly like that, I hope.” Aziraphale’s breath brushed past his ear, making his whole face tingle and redden against his will. He still could not force himself to break out of the angel’s arms holding him tight.

_But if you really hold me tight, All the way home I’ll be warm._

Now, _that_ was enough to make the demon all but jump out of Aziraphale’s embrace, muttering some excuses and spreading his arms wide to show that he was alright. But the ghost of Aziraphale’s touch lingered on his body long after the angel turned around with a satisfied nod, after they finally set down to share some wine once all the decorations had been placed around the bookshop - Crowley noticed that they shone much too brightly than such cheap lights should have been able to, but Aziraphale’s smirk was self-explanatory - and even after the demon walked out of the door, leaving the warm glow now pervading the bookshop behind him. It even lingered as he sat in the Bentley, his brain suddenly unable to remember how to start the car and that bitter taste he hated so much back on his tongue.

He breathed deeply despite not needing any air, trying to ignore the hollow pain closing around his heart and wondering why he did not seem to be able to handle this blessed _freedom_.

✦

Heaven and Hell were both very fond of adding stairs to their infrastructures, although not a single angel or demon would have ever admitted to it (except Aziraphale and Crowley, who had been joking about how many staircases filled their Head Offices since the Eighteenth Century). They were not similar in any way aside from their intrinsic nature, with Heaven’s staircases being blindingly white and having steps wide enough to allow half a platoon of angels to walk on them simultaneously and Hell’s stairs resembling a broken spinal cord of dark bent steps sticking out at odd angles.

Heaven relished in the idea of being at the top of their staircases leading down to Earth and all the other worlds in between, physical proof that they were above everything else but still keeping a watchful eye. On the other hand, Hell took pride in being at the bottom of theirs, in the pits of all that was known and ready to devour any unfortunate soul finding its way down those steps. Whatever their purpose, millions of staircases going up, down, and sideways crisscrossed throughout the existing universe. And with such a convoluted map of paths and steps, a few staircases were bound to meet somewhere in the middle.

To be more precise, exactly one staircase going to Heaven and one leading to Hell met. And it was on that nebulous middle ground, still wrapped in the darkness exuding from the depths of Hell but lit up enough by Heaven’s light to offer some visibility, that the archangel Gabriel and Lord Beelzebub held an unprecedented meeting.

Gabriel had actually been waiting for what the humans on Earth would have counted as forty-seven minutes before Beelzebub climbed up the steps to set foot on the middle ground, their pace deliberately slow. They kept a reasonable distance between each other - what the humans would have measured as half a kilometre - so neither entity would have had to smell the stench exuding from the other. Although Beelzebub still curled their nose in disgust despite not possessing a sense of smell, just so they could enjoy the annoyed look on the archangel’s face.

“I have been waiting.” Gabriel spoke with a clear voice that carried loudly across the space devoid of air or atmosphere.

Beelzebub put their hands on their hips, their expression unreadable. “Do I look like I care?”

They waited a few seconds to snicker at the flash of anger obscuring the other’s face before adding, “Why did you send that message in Hell? It reeked of blessings.”

“It was perfectly odourless and unblessed” replied Gabriel, his tone always steady. “And I sent it because there is an urgent matter we need to discuss. Regarding the… rebels.”

“You mean the traitor Crowley who ran off with that heavenly scum?” A few flies escaped Beelzebub’s mouth and circled around their head with a noisy buzzing. “I thought the matter was _clozzzed_ after they made us look like fools. It took three batches of human souls from a civil war to torture to calm the demons down!”

“Don’t think we haven’t had our problems in Heaven too. Aziraphale’s show with that hellfire has troubled quite a lot of angels, and the other archangels and I have been busy mending the damage.”

“Then why have you called me here? I zzzay we leave the matter of the traitors behind us before it can cause any more trouble. As if the failure of Armageddon wasn’t enough.”

Gabriel clasped his hands together in a nervous gesture and spoke quickly not to risk losing Beelzebub’s attention. “I am afraid that the issue has been reproposing itself in Heaven. Aziraphale’s apparent immunity to hellfire has led some angels to believe that he might be… protected by the Almighty Herself. It is _preposterous_ of course, but the numbers of those angels have been rising and they are showing signs of indiscipline. Now, we simply cannot have that in Heaven.”

Beelzebub scoffed, a few more flies squeezing themselves between their lips and flying away. One of them reached Gabriel’s face, who swatted it away with an expression of disgust. “You don’t seem to be doing a good job of controlling your angels.”

“I am doing a perfect job!” The archangel’s voice rose higher with anger, a shadow falling across his face and making his eyes glint with a purple hue. “But I cannot control their thoughts and a rebellious angel immune to hellfire and to Heaven’s control has given them a lot of thoughts. Therefore, we need to impose our authority and get rid of those two before they can cause a revolution!”

“You mean you need to impozzze your authority. Hell has nothing to do with your incompetence.”

“Oh, please” Gabriel moved a hand to push his hair back, his face once again a blank slate of calm. “Do not tell me that you have had it all under control down there. If we have been having problems in Heaven, you must be close to a proper revolt in Hell.”

“It izzz not a revolt!” Beelzebub took a heavy step forward, their hands sizzling with demonic fury, until they realised what they had just said and closed them in fists. “Maybe I also had to deal with some demons who refuse to do their job, but it is under control. I won’t let a minor demon like Crowley destroy my power just because he likes to splash in holy water.”

“You might have it under control, but for how long? Those traitors have defied our authority and ridiculed the laws of Heaven and Hell with their _association_.” He spatted out the last word as if it were a bitter mouthful, his brows scrunched up in irritation. “They must be brought back under control, so we can finally make an example out of them and close this matter for good.”

Beelzebub stayed silent, their face seemingly lost in thought, and Gabriel continued. “Now, our main concern is finding a _way_ to bring them under control, since holy water and hellfire seem to not do the trick.”

The Lord of Hell’s face twisted into a maniacal sneer, their eyes shining with all the fires of their dominion and demonic power surrounding them so suddenly to burn away several flies in the proximity.

“I might have an idea.”

✦

Walking through St. James’s Park in the middle of December after a quite heavy snowfall the night before was a feat dared by few and completed by almost no one. The paths had not been cleared yet and the entire surface of the park was reduced to a motionless starkly white plane, with trees popping up like peculiar mushrooms and the ponds looking like massive mirrors as the sole trademarks. The gelid air felt like it could cut through steel with only one wisp of wind, and even the weak sunlight pushing with difficulty through the clouds could not offer any warmth. The human on the telly had suggested to spend the day inside.

So, naturally, Crowley and Aziraphale wrapped themselves in coats laced with warm miracles - Aziraphale also added a soft pastel blue hat with a pompom that he apparently had lying around the bookshop and blushed when Crowley muttered that it matched his eyes - and went for a walk in St. James’s Park.

The angel felt invigorated by the clear winter air after unrelenting snowstorms had chased each other through the past several days, forcing him and Crowley inside for most of the time. The demon had taken refuge into the bookshop before the first snowflake had even touched the ground, admitting that he did not care much for waiting out the snowfall alone in his apartment. He had then proceeded to alternate sessions of staring longingly out of the window, complaining loudly about being unable to walk outside, and moving like a hurricane through the bookshelves in search of nothing in particular.

It was, therefore, with immense delight that Aziraphale had noticed that no more snowflakes were whirling past the windows and that the only snow outside was the one accumulated in massive piles along the street. He had all but dragged the sleeping demon off the sofa and to the entrance, throwing a coat at him in a hurry - and hitting the poor fellow in the face with a loud smack, as the reflexes of a half-asleep Crowley appeared to be lacking in speed.

Now he turned to look up at Crowley’s face, a wide grin smoothing out his features and his golden eyes glinting with excitement. His sunglasses laid forgotten on the coffee table in the bookshop, an oversight in which Aziraphale may or may not have played a part. He could hardly be blamed for it though, he thought to himself, as he so rarely had the chance to admire the demon’s eyes. And oh, how much he _loved_ those eyes!

He only realised how long he had been quietly studying Crowley’s face when he moved his gaze to look him in the eyes, his giddy smirk softening as he asked, “Is everything alright, angel?”

“Yes, dearest.” Aziraphale could not remember another time when he had felt as happy as he did while walking through a frozen park with a demon beside him. “Everything is perfect.”

Time seemed to slow down as Crowley’s hand moved up to gently brush a patch of snow off Aziraphale’s hat, lingering on the spot where the fabric ended and a few curls that had escaped the edge of the hat began. The angel held his breath and wondered why he could suddenly feel his thunderous heartbeat through his ears, why he wished for Crowley’s hand to reach his face, why he felt sparks radiating from that point of contact.

Then, in a blur, Crowley’s hand was gone and so was his face and the rest of his body. Aziraphale yelped and finally remembered how to breathe, his gaze looking for the demon and eventually finding him fallen over on his back in a pile of fresh snow. He was brushing off some more snow from his face and muttering a few quite unkind words under his breath.

“Sorry about that, sir!” Came a piercing voice from behind them. “Didn’t mean to hit you with that snowball. I wanted to throw it at Sophie!”

“Hey!” Another high-pitched indignant voice followed, probably belonging to Sophie.

Aziraphale spun around to see two young children running down a hill in their direction, a couple of women rushing after them and obviously regretting every decision they had made that day. The boy who had thrown the snowball stopped a few meters away from Crowley, his face scrunched up in what was supposed to be an apologetic expression but looked a lot more like badly veiled amusement.

“Do you need help getting up?” He sounded truly curious as he directed the question at Crowley, still sitting in the snow with a shocked expression stamped on his face.

Aziraphale chuckled delightedly and went to help the demon stand up, grabbing him by the arm. Crowley held onto him as he pushed himself off the snow, which did not exactly favour his point when he rumbled, “I can very well get up on my own, kid.”

“Good for you, sir.”

Crowley’s eyes widened even more, and Aziraphale feared he might drop a fully grown tree on the young boy as payback. He prepared to say something to calm him down when the demon raised a hand, a perfectly round-shaped snowball sitting in it. He threw it with a sharp motion and hit the boy square in the chest.

“Now, that,” A broad grin appeared on his face. ”Is how you throw a snowball.”

The surprised look on the boy’s face soon turned into a toothy smile while he rushed to make another snowball to respond with. Crowley made a playful gesture of defence, pretending to be scared, and Aziraphale felt a very warm and peculiar feeling rising in his chest as he watched the demon’s face light up like it had done many other times with a different child years before.

However, the boy’s poor aim made sure that the strangely shaped mass of snow never hit Crowley and landed instead on one of the two women’s stomach, forcing her to double over.

“Jamie! The Krampus will get you if you keep this up!”

Aziraphale had heard that human saying quite a few times and paid no mind to it, while Jamie made a complaining sound.

Crowley’s face, however, darkened visibly as he began to walk away at a quick pace without another word. The angel froze for a moment in confusion at the sudden change in his demeanour before rushing after him, nearly struggling to keep up with the demon’s longer strides.

“Crowley, did that human story upset you?” He grabbed the demon by the elbow, gently tugging on it to make him stop in place.

Crowley indulged him and allowed Aziraphale to shift him around so they were facing each other. But his voice kept a sharp edge. “It is not a story, Aziraphale.”

“How do you mean? It’s a legend made up by humanity to scare children around Christmas time, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, the legend must have come from somewhere, mustn’t it?”

The demon’s tone was much higher than necessary, and his face betrayed a swirl of emotions that Aziraphale could not decipher. He was careful to keep his voice low and calm when he asked, “Where did it come from?”

Crowley sighed, letting his shoulders sag. “It’s a demon, angel. The Krampus, they’re a demon from Hell. An old one, too.”

Aziraphale could not help the look of shock that took over his face, his brain fumbling to recall anything about this particular demon. They could not have been among the Fallen who used to live in Heaven, as he failed to find a face to connect to such a name.

Crowley seemed to have read his thoughts. “They were not there for the Fall, if that’s what you’re wondering. But they were created not long after, have been around almost as much as me. And they have visited Earth quite often too, that’s why the humans have built stories around them.”

It was obvious that the topic was upsetting him, and Aziraphale would keep his many questions to himself if it meant erasing that pained expression from Crowley’s face. “Dear, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind. You should probably know this. Y’know, just in case they show up” His eyes said that he did indeed mind very much, but he continued. “Krampus was not their original name, but it is the one they took for themselves once they realised the fear that it would arise in people.”

He sent the angel a meaningful look. “They are one of the worst ones, Aziraphale. They- they take human emotions and feelings, anything that makes them whole, and use them to build their own powers. And Hell.”

“They build Hell?” Aziraphale could not stop himself from asking, but immediately sent Crowley an apologetic look.

“They were created for that, I think” he replied, his voice sounding almost frantic. “They come to Earth on occasions, take whatever they can from humanity, and use the power they gained to expand the confines of Hell.”

“Crowley, that’s enough. I don’t need to know more, you’ve told me enough.” The angel gave a small reassuring squeeze to his arm, trying to comfort him.

Crowley relaxed visibly, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and his features expressed clear gratitude, although his voice was still shaking. “I just- I always hated being around them in Hell, and even more whenever I met them here. I felt like, like they knew that I-“

He interrupted himself abruptly, looking at Aziraphale with wide eyes for a few seconds before averting his gaze. He gave a nudge to his elbow, still settled comfortably among the angel’s fingers. Aziraphale got the message and resumed walking, leading him toward the exit of the park. They walked in silence for several minutes, Crowley’s hand silently moving to rest over his own and giving comfort to the both of them.

The angel finally asked, “Are they coming back to Earth anytime soon?”

“Haven’t been back since the last World War from what I know. I doubt they will be coming up here now after the state you left Hell in.” A smirk had painfully found its way back on his face, and Aziraphale beamed at the sight.

“Jolly good, then.”

They dined at the Ritz that night, relishing in each other’s company and talking about mindless things that did not require much thinking but brought about a whole lot of laughing. The worry lines on Crowley’s face gradually smoothened out, and Aziraphale had never welcomed a sight more.

When the demon eventually fell asleep on the sofa in the bookshop as he enjoyed to do, Aziraphale covered him with what had now become his personal blanket and sat beside him.

As he watched the kindest demon, the kindest being, he knew sleep in an impossible tangle of limbs, not even visions of a nightmarish builder of Hell were enough to break his peace.

✦

Beelzebub’s steps echoed loudly in the hollow corridors, the unstable walls shaking and waving at the passage of the Lord of Hell. That section of Hell’s periphery was still under construction - several signs pointed it out at the start of the corridor saying “Do not enter unless you want to be included in the construction” and right after, written with a spent red marker “Actually enter. We need construction material” - and Beelzebub could feel the ground shifting under their feet, attempting to hold their weight.

Other hallways and empty chambers moved of their own accord along the main space, and Beelzebub inspected them until they felt the presence they were looking for in an unfinished round room, half of it still enclosed in the dark mist of nonexistence. A tall demon stood in the middle of it, their essence clinging to a human corporation with the arms stretched out in front of them. That body should have been discarded decades ago as the demonic essence, stronger in the depths of Hell, had corrupted parts of it beyond recognition. The feet had turned into animal hooves as black as ink, and fur that was decidedly not human enveloped most of the legs, clearly visible under the torn remains of a brown suit. Their face still retained its human appearance, with dark skin and even darker hair, although among the curls a pair of horns - a human would have recognised them as belonging to a goat - shone dully. The demon whipped their head around when they heard Beelzebub enter, twisting the neck in a way that broke a few bones, and their yellow eyes with horizontally slitted pupils fixed on the Lord of Hell.

“Ah,” their voice sounded surprisingly smooth, despite the horrid state their body was in. “To what do I owe the displeasure of being disturbed?”

“Moderate your words, _Krampus_.” Beelzebub spat out the name curling their nose in displeasure of a moniker that had been chosen by mindless humans. “I’m coming to offer you a chanzzze to go give Earth a little visit.”

Krampus narrowed their eyes in suspicion, lowering their arms. “And exactly why am I being given this chance? My powers don’t need replenishment just yet.”

“I’m not zzzending you there to have your fun with petty humans. You need to complete a job for Hell.”

“I am already doing my job here.” They waved a hand to the room rocking around in a sea of mist.

“Oh but this one will be more fun.” A devilish sneer spread on Beelzebub’s face. “It has to do with the traitor Crowley and that little angel he likes to keep around.”

Krampus’s face mirrored Beelzebub’s broken smile, his eyes glinting with a sick yellow light in the gloom and the ghost of a long whip buzzing for a split second into his hand.

“I’m listening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter - and the following ones - is an adaptation of part of the lyrics from the song "Carol of the Bells".
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving kudos or comments. If you did not enjoy it and would like to scream at me in frustration instead, kudos might not be the best option for you, but you can still leave a comment. I promise I will respond matching your same levels of screaming.
> 
> And remember, beware of fake Santa's if you posses a vintage Bentley.


	2. One seems to hear, Words of good fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley growled and intensified his hold on Krampus’s wrist. “What did you take from him?”
> 
> The other demon put on an expression of fake surprise, their sickeningly yellow eyes glinting in the darkness. “Oh, you mean this is the dirty angel you lost your wits for? That one there?”
> 
> “You better choose your words carefully, Krampus.” Crowley gritted his teeth.
> 
> Krampus grinned in response, their voice smooth as silk when they spoke again. “But you do love him, don’t you? It’s so miserably obvious, I wonder how he hasn’t seen it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Angst Train Tour officially starts here, brace yourselves for the ride (seat belts are not provided on this vehicle)

It did not take long for Crowley to discover an essential truth about himself.

He simply _loved_ spoiling his angel.

He was enamoured with the way Aziraphale’s eyes would twinkle in delight at the sight of a new delicacy finding its way on the table of the bookshop moments before Crowley sauntered past the entrance or being brought to their usual table unexpectedly after the demon had whispered about it in the chef’s mind. He basked in the warmth of the exact moment that a smile would win over the surprise on the angel’s face on the times that Crowley handed him a new book to add to his collection (he had entered in a screaming match with a grey-haired woman and her wife at a street market for the last one, which had ended with the seller stomping on his foot before handing him the book. _Blasted humans and their heels_ ). He could not help the surge of satisfaction that would arise in him at sensing Aziraphale’s gratitude manifesting in powerful waves.

It came then as no surprise that he knew exactly what to do when he overheard Aziraphale trying to manoeuvre the first customer of the week - _still one too many_ , was the clear thought expressed on his face - toward the door while also politely engaging in conversation with her. Her volume of voice made it impossible for the demon not to hear every word about the Christmas dinner she had planned. However, what truly caught his attention was the momentaneous shine in Aziraphale’s eyes as he agreed on how important such a tradition was, the last sentence he needed to utter before skillfully leading her over the threshold and into the street. It did not matter that the angel’s face immediately resumed a neutral and placid expression once the door was closed. Crowley had already seen enough.

He burst through the doors of the bookshop that same night, mere hours after he had left, with a wide grin of anticipation that immediately transferred on Aziraphale’s face, as it tended to do so very often.

“You seem to be in good spirits, dear” Aziraphale greeted him, the question obvious in his tone.

“I am, angel.” He whipped off his sunglasses and let them drop on an armchair. “But you’re about to be in even better ones.”

“And why would that be?”

Crowley put no effort in trying to control his ever-growing smile and instead raised his right hand, with the palm facing up as if holding a phantom tray. “We are having a proper Christmas dinner.”

Aziraphale brightened up. “Oh, wonderful! I’ll grab my coat and be ready in a moment, then. Where are we going?”

He moved to stand up but Crowley was quick to put his hand on his shoulders and push him back down, huffing a little. “No, Aziraphale. We’re having it _here_.”

The angel’s eyes darted between him and the empty bookshop, his smile wavering a little as he said, “Crowley, you do know there isn’t any dinner in here, don’t you?”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at the slight sarcasm in his voice but maintained his composure, standing up again. “Now, that is because you haven’t ordered it yet.”

“I’m not sure I follow. Where do I order it?”

“From me, angel! You give _me_ the order.” He raked a hand through his hair, cursing himself for not having planned a better introduction. He took a deep breath to steady his voice and tried again. “We are having dinner. Right here. Just give me your order and I’ll bring it here from anywhere in the world. How’s that sound?”

A second passed. “And I’ll leave money for it, obviously.”

Aziraphale’s expression turned so bright that it could have easily illuminated the entire street - and maybe even Soho, thought Crowley with fondness - as he bolted up and went to stand in front of the demon. For a moment, he seemed about to lean closer, his arms stretched out in what looked like a hug, but he quickly changed his mind and settled for gifting him with a sweet smile. Both of them noticed the tinge of pink appearing briefly on each other’s face, and yet chose not to speak of it.

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale spoke his name with what sounded almost like adoration, making the demon feel like a few of the inside bits in his corporation had gone up in flames.” This is such a wonderful idea, oh thank you. But you don’t have to-”

“I insist” Crowley interrupted him with a hand raised. “And, besides, it’s about time we get the full human package, isn’t it? I clearly recall you talking about Christmas celebrations.”

“So I did.” Aziraphale assumed an excited expression, nearly wiggling in anticipation. And once again Crowley was reminded of how much he adored being the one to elicit that reaction.

“Well then” he exclaimed, raising his arm in a dramatic gesture once more, “What’s the first item on the menu tonight?”

Aziraphale gave himself some time to think, several seconds passing before his eyes lit up. “Oh dear, do you remember that dessert we tried in Italy in - was it the Nineteenth Century? I do believe it was around Christmas time then as well.”

Crowley remembered. He had followed Aziraphale through the entire country with the excuse of having to tempt the same man he was protecting. Hell had even given him a commendation for acquiring a new soul after said man had gotten drunk and fallen off a bridge - him and Aziraphale had been having dinner together at the time, and Beelzebub’s voice rising out of the fireplace to congratulate him had quite scared the angel.

“As you wish, angel” A smirk played on his lips as he prepared to snap his fingers, “The finest _pandoro_ in Italy coming right up.”

Aziraphale’s fingers closed around the demon’s hand before he could complete the miracle, setting his face on fire in a very undignified way. “Not that one, Crowley!”

It took all of Crowley’s will not to reply with strangled sounds, as the angel’s hand still firmly held his own in a gentle hold. “You said Italian Christmas dessert, Aziraphale. That’s the one.”

“Not the only one, and you know it.”

“But the _better_ one, by far” He fixed his gaze on the angel. “And, if I’m not mistaken, you called it ‘one of humanity’s best creations’”

“Well, if I did say that-”

“You did.”

“If I did,” Aziraphale raised his voice slightly in annoyance. “That was before I tried the _panettone_ , which is far superior.”

Crowley twisted his mouth. “You can’t be serious. It has all that… stuff inside.”

“Those are raisins and dried fruits, Crowley” Aziraphale let go of him to place his hands on his hips, and Crowley’s hand suddenly felt much colder. “And they are a delicacy. Now, I was under the impression I would be the one ordering.”

The demon made a gesture of exasperation, but his face softened into a fond smile nonetheless. “And you are, angel. Panettone it is, then.”

He snapped his fingers, allowing a tall round cake wrapped in a red bow to make its appearance on the coffee table, shining invitingly under the dim lights of the bookshop. Aziraphale clasped his hands in front of him in excitement, his eyes shone like twin stars, and Crowley could have just kissed him right there and then. He shook his head immediately, giving himself only a few seconds of these thoughts before pushing them down in the back of his mind. He made sure his voice would sound steady when he spoke again.

“So, angel, what’s next?”

✦

The snow piled up on the streets of London was well on its way to remain untouched until the morning - as everyone had been quick to scuttle back inside their homes at the first hint of a gelid winter wind - when a heavy step broke through it, leaving a footprint that resembled a lot more an animal hoof than a human foot. The dark figure to which the hoof belonged moved swiftly along the street, despite their legs bending at peculiar angles with each step and their torn clothes blowing up in the wind. They made no sound that could be heard by human ears, and their presence would have left no perceptible trace hadn’t they raised their arm to rotate a long whip in the air. With a snap of the figure’s wrist, the tip of the whip went flying through the air and through walls, wrapping itself tightly to the ankle of a sleeping Londoner. He would not have been able to perceive the whip with his senses even if he had been staring right at it, but his mind responded to the contact almost immediately. He began to turn in his bed, his face twisted in a pained expression even as the whip slowly released itself from his body.

Krampus licked their lips in satisfaction, the sweet taste that they had just stolen lingering in their mouth as the force of the sensation - newly formed romantic love always had a particular effect - coursed through them, sparking up a feeling of power that they hadn’t enjoyed since the last human war. They resumed walking, occasionally ripping away some more bits of what the sleeping humans held dear - devotion to others, affection for a home, satisfaction over their own life - and savouring each of them with a twisted sneer. They made sure, however, never to take high amounts or linger on one taste for too long. They would need all of their concentration for the meal they were about to have.

✦

The Christmas dinner had been stretched well into the night, with an ethereal being asking and an occult one providing to their hearts’ content. Aziraphale had savoured everything that had miraculously appeared on the table with delight, while Crowley’s own delight had come instead from admiring the angel in front of him, who seemed close to glowing brighter than the string of lights above him, the food he had taken for himself barely nibbled. A bottle of red Lambrusco had swiftly found its way to the table sometime through the meal, although Crowley had nothing to do with it and, when turning to Aziraphale, saw a tiny smirk badly concealed on the angel’s face. By the time both of them collapsed on the sofa next to each other, most of the food had been eaten, the wine drunk and replenished and drunk again, and laughs sweeter than any dessert shared in abundance.

The thought of miracling away the happily drunken state that they had both fallen into did not brush their minds in the slightest, and so they laid on the old comfortable sofa, giggling for no particular reason other than pure contentment and close enough that their shoulders and sides were pressed against each other.

“D’you remember the other day, dear’st,” Aziraphale’s voice sounded sluggish and words came out slightly slurred. “When you terrified that poor boy?”

“Don’t recall.” Crowley meant to say something more, but the words escaped him before he could grab them, so he simply closed his mouth and quietly wondered why the Christmas lights were floating around the bookshop by themselves.

“F’course you do! You were asleep on the counter” Aziraphale’s giggle was as clear as silver bells. “As a _snake_!”

Crowley’s laugh soon followed as the image of a young university student who had entered the bookshop to ask for directions popped up in his head. He had been asleep for the whole ordeal but, according to Aziraphale’s amused retelling of it, the student had gone up to the counter and yelped at the sight of Crowley’s snake form, his spires wrapped languidly on themselves and the end of his tail hanging over the edge. Aziraphale’s reassuring words had been useless, because the boy had whipped around in terror and run out of the shop, yelling something about a law against exotic animals in commercial establishments. The demon had not felt sorry in the slightest, as he had found that wrapping himself up in the warmest spots of the bookshop - which usually tended to be very close to its owner - made for the best naps of his existence.

He was still laughing wholeheartedly at the memory when Aziraphale’s head dropped heavily on his shoulder without any warning, largely sobering him up and making him freeze in place. “Don’t know why that boy was s’afraid” muttered the angel, his blond curls tingling against Crowley’s chin as he settled in. “You are so v’ry lovely in all of your forms.”

Then, there was silence. Crowley gave up on breathing, his heart aching while waiting for Aziraphale to pull back as he was so sure he would. Instead, he felt his head grow even heavier on his shoulder, as the angel’s entire body tilted slightly toward him. Crowley looked down to meet his eyes and realised that he had fallen asleep on the spot, comfortably settled on the demon’s side and his features smoothened out into a peaceful expression. He bit his lip, his free hand moving up to hover above Aziraphale’s hair for nearly a minute before daring to caress his curls. The angel’s hair felt even softer than Crowley had expected, his hand sinking easily in it. It almost felt like an act of desecration, to run his fingers back and forth over that sea of white-blond, beautiful curls, but at the same time Crowley thought that it was the most natural thing, that his hand simply _belonged_ there just like Aziraphale belonged next to him like that.

He only allowed himself a few heartbeats of such achingly sweet thoughts though, as his mind was quick to remind him that the angel did not belong to him in that way, that he would surely never have any desire to. And yet, for that moment, Aziraphale was asleep on his shoulder, his weight an anchor of comfort against his side, and Crowley would be blessed if he did not try to stretch that moment as much as possible. He let his chin rest on top of the angel’s head, relishing in the tickling sensation of his messy locks, and closed his eyes, burning every detail and sensation he could perceive in his head.

Then, he felt it. An almost imperceptible tug at his gut, a subtle burning smell that might have gone undetected if he hadn’t known the precise odour of the bookshop so well. Alarm bells went off in his head as he recognised the feeling.

Demonic presence.

He was quick to stand up after making sure to move Aziraphale so he would lie comfortably on the sofa, still fast asleep. He could feel his own brain partly enveloped in the fumes of alcohol, and it took him a few seconds to perform a miracle to clear his thoughts. And in those precious seconds, where he let his consciousness momentarily lose hold of the presence, the feeling disappeared.

Crowley looked around frantically, struggling to grab onto that feeling again. It had felt so clear, so obvious that he could not have simply imagined it. But now it was nowhere to be found, the alarms that had been blaring in his head suddenly quiet and the smell in the bookshop returned to the sweet mixture of leftover dessert and old pages.

He moved the curtains away from the closest window, his golden eyes scanning the street for any movement or sign of danger. The twinkle of stark white snow under the streetlamps was the only one returning his gaze from the empty road, with no living being daring to brave the chilling night. The demon let his consciousness expand even further, scanning streets and buildings and bridges that his eyes could not see, in search of that presence he had felt so vividly. Only when his search yielded no results, the streets of London responding only with silence to his presence, did he retreat from the window.

His gaze fell back on Aziraphale who still looked perfectly peaceful and unbothered aside from a few murmurs in his sleep. Crowley’s puzzled brain could not fathom the immediate disappearance of a presence that had felt so strong and so _close_. It had been so terrifyingly close to Aziraphale, and he shivered at the notion.

Then, a sudden thought came to him from the recesses of his memory, and he set his jaw. The demon hurried to pick up his coat and sunglasses from the armchair, moving swiftly so as not to wake up Aziraphale. He bolted toward the door and opened it with a sharp motion, stopping only a second to take in the sight of the sleeping angel one last time before walking through the threshold.

✦

The sight of the ordeal taking place inside that blessed shop had been enough to make Krampus’s insides churn - or rather, get even more churned than they already had been. They had watched as the demon Crowley had circled around that angel, giving him the same lovesick glances that they had observed on so many pitiful humans. And, worse than that, the angel had responded with glances and smiles of his own, as the pair behaved exactly like weak and foolish human beings. It had only brought disgust to Krampus, their teeth gritted in indignation at having to be the witness of such a madness. The only thing keeping them in place had been the amount of _love_ exuding from the place in so many forms and degrees, an entire range of emotions and sensations in waves that they had never experienced before. The thought of feasting on such a mine of raw intensity had convinced them to wait a little longer.

The opportune moment seemed to have come when the angel had fallen asleep, followed suit by the traitor. At that moment, Krampus had made their mistake, allowing their concentration to slip for the time necessary to evoke their whip and temporarily unmasking their presence. Too late had they remedied their oversight, because Crowley was suddenly on his feet and checking around for any intruder. However, hiding their essence from him had been easy after restoring their concentration, and apparently he had been careless enough to pay it no further mind.

Now, Krampus watched, their corporation reduced to a mere shadow on a wall for the time being, while the demon Crowley exited the shop and headed toward his car. He did not hesitate to get inside it and begin to drive away, not even to scan the street one more time. _All this time on Earth has made you weak_ was the thought passing through their mind as they waited for the roar of the car to fade away in the distance. Once the street had returned to its previous silence, they turned toward the window with a grin of triumph.

And they wondered whether Crowley would even recognize his precious angel the following day.

Krampus tilted their head while observing the angelic being on the other side of the window, their fingers beating a rhythm on the whip that matched the ripples of emotions dancing off of the sleeping figure.

It would have been wise for them to wait before using their powers on him, assessing his defenses and accurately choosing what kind of sentiment to latch onto first. But Krampus had been bearing the sight of that blasted principality for hours, anticipating the taste of his peculiar devotion, and were unwilling to wait any longer. So, they flicked their wrist upward and sent their whip flying across the window, moving so fast to appear like a squirt of ink.

The cascade of sensations that followed the landing of the weapon on the angel’s wrist hit them square in the chest, forcing them to take a step back to regain balance. The ethereal essence fought against their hold, but the demon could feel the ocean of power lying just behind those barriers and let their energy blast through them. And they laughed in broken strangled sounds as they debated which part of that immense love deserved to lose meaning and significance forever in favour of gifting them unprecedented strength.

A few beacons of fiercer love and affection shone brightly, and they directed their attention to them. One, in particular, was heavily guarded by angelic might and buried deeper than the others. Krampus grinned mockingly. They knew which love that was. But repressed feelings were unstable and unpredictable, so they chose a different source to grasp tightly.

The demon tugged on the whip and enjoyed the course of raw power filling their body, more intense than they would have ever imagined. The harder they pulled and the more feelings of devotion and affection they ripped, the deeper the lines on the angel’s face became. He began to stir in his sleep, eyes darting from side to side behind his closed pupils, as if trying to escape an invisible prison.

He wouldn’t be escaping _that_ prison anytime soon, Krampus revelled in the thought, imagining the magnitude of the side effects that their power would have on an ethereal being. They prepared to tug on the whip once more.

A hand suddenly closed around the wrist holding the weapon. It squeezed hard and made them partly lose their grip on it out of surprise, severing the flow of emotions.

A furious hiss came from behind them. “That issss enough.”

✦

Crowley had suspected that whatever demonic presence he had felt earlier could have been masking its essence even to others of its own kind, in a way that only a handful of demons had knowledge of. He had thought that attracting that presence away from the bookshop was the best idea to protect Aziraphale.

What he had not suspected was that its target could be the bookshop itself - and the angel inside it.

He was now staring at the hunched figure of Krampus, all bent limbs and torn clothes but exuding a threatening amount of demonic power. Crowley did not have time to be surprised at their appearance, as he realised with horror that they must have already tapped into a source of emotions in order to gather that much power. And a being of pure love was just on the other side of the nearby wall.

He growled and intensified his hold on Krampus’s wrist. “What did you take from him?”

The other demon put on an expression of fake surprise, their sickeningly yellow eyes glinting in the darkness. “Oh, you mean this is the dirty angel you lost your wits for? That one there?”

“You better choose your words carefully, Krampus.” Crowley gritted his teeth, twisting their arm sharply to make them drop the whip, which faded out of sight before even touching the ground.

Krampus grinned nonetheless, their voice smooth as silk when they spoke again. “But you _do_ love him, don’t you? It’s so miserably obvious, I wonder how he hasn’t seen it.”

The words hit Crowley as painfully as a punch to the gut, and the split second allowed Krampus to escape his grip. They almost looked amused now. “And you haven’t even told him.”

“Stop talking.”

“It must be _burning_ you inside, I can almost feel it -”

Crowley reached over with his hand in a flash, his own demonic power shooting forward and enveloping Krampus in a tight hold. He closed a tight fist around them, keeping them firmly in place and unable to perform any movement. He was aware that, with the amount of strength they had just gained, they could have easily broken through his bonds. He would just have to scare them off before they realised it too.

He leaned forward, his face twisted in a devilish sneer. “Do not test my patience, leech. Tell me what you stole from him. And speak quickly.”

Krampus had begun to look unnerved, but they still challenged him. “Or what?”

“Why don’t you ask Ligur?” He instilled all the confidence he did not truly have in those few words. “Oh, wait…”

The other demon widened their eyes, twisting around in the tendrils of power wrapped around them. “You could never do that again. It was pure luck!” they spitted out.

“Do you want to test that theory out?”

Krampus’s attempt to maintain a straight face failed miserably, as fear seeped quickly through their features, freezing them in place. They remained silent even as Crowley brought his face even closer, ready to deliver another well-placed threat.

In that moment, Aziraphale began to stir awake on the other side of the window. His cheeks were unnaturally shiny, and with a pang to his heart the demon noticed tears running down them. He was suddenly filled with immense fury at the sight of the look of pain painted on the angel’s face, and he refused to have him know how his emotions had been violated and nearly ripped away from him. He dragged Krampus away from the window by the torn lapel of their suit.

“You will leave _now_.” Crowley intoned, releasing the bonds blocking them. “Or I’ll make sure that the next thing you taste will be a fontful of holy water.”

Krampus sent him a look that burned like the fires of Hell, but did not contradict him. They staggered a little to regain their balance and then moved to open a doorway for Hell.

“Before you go,” added Crowley. “You will tell me what you took from him. What did you do?”

Their tone was mocking and laced with disgust when they answered. “Why don’t you run to the rescue of your _dear angel_ and find out?”

And with a flash that did not emit any true light, they were gone.

✦

Aziraphale could not quite remember how he had gotten to the backroom of his bookshop. He faintly recalled having dinner with Crowley, although he could not say whether it had been that same day or even a week prior. He let his hand run over the spines of a row of books, trying to shake the sense of uneasiness that had fallen upon him.

Then, without a noise or any sign of warning, the walls of the bookshop began to close down on him. It started slowly but, as soon as he realised what was happening, the process sped up, and in a matter of minutes he could no longer extend his arms to their full length. He attempted to evoke his angelic strength to push back on those barriers trying to devour him, but he found that he could no longer access his powers. His wings would not respond and, trying as he might, he seemed unable to perform any miracles.

He screamed for help, for Crowley, to demand what was happening, but his throat barely produced a sound, his screams reduced to a mere whisper. And walls kept on getting closer, now pushing him against the bookshelf and pressing harder and harder on his chest. Aziraphale found himself gasping for breath even though he should not have needed it, and pure sheer panic arose in him, making his limbs feel heavy and an unbearable weight to move. He had never felt such a burst of fear, not as uncontrollable and irrational as he was feeling it now.

In the midst of his struggle, a whizzing voice whispered not quite to his ear but directly through his head, as if it were one of his own thoughts. _You built yourself this prison and you shall perish in it._

Aziraphale wanted to ask what prison the voice meant but his voice had completely failed him now. So, he listened as the disembodied tone flew in and out of his head, almost distracting him from the walls that were still trapping him. _You made a prison of paper and leather and wood and_ dared _call it a home. Surrounded yourself with dead words of humans long gone simply to avoid the living world and the fears it fostered in you._

With a shot of pain, the angel realised that the voice was talking about the bookshop. His beloved bookshop where he had gathered all that he loved best about humanity. The one he had made it his home, even more so now that Crowley…

_He won’t remember you once you’re swallowed whole by this prison. One day you will disappear in the recesses of it, surrounded by books and futile possessions, and he will just not care._

He tried to press his hands to his ears to cut off this string of words wounding him like knives. But his limbs seemed to be enveloped in a liquid that forced them to move so maddeningly slow, providing him no help in fighting the voice.

 _“Love for humanity’s imagination and creativity”_ the voice mocked a version of his own words from long ago. _You don’t love humanity. You don’t love this shop of yours. You are just SCARED._

And just like that, Aziraphale was suddenly able to scream again. And scream he did, until the walls retreated and disappeared into oblivion, until he drowned that damned voice into silence.

Then, he was not screaming anymore. He was lying down on the sofa in a different part of the bookshop, his brain feeling fuzzy and already losing details of what he had just experienced. Apparently, it had all been a dream. The worst nightmare that Aziraphale had ever known, although he now found himself unable to pinpoint exactly why it had shaken him so much. He felt a tingle on his cheeks and brought a hand up to brush them, finding wet tears streaking across them.

The angel looked around, feeling uneasy about not being able to quite remember such a terrible dream. But that was not the only source of his uneasiness. He stared at the bookshelves surrounding him, an alarm bell ringing in his head for no apparent reason.

Had they always been bent that way? Did the shelves always feel like they might precipitate on him, burying his body under their weight? He did not recall having ever had such feelings about the bookshop in the past, but somehow the mere concept of its walls closing down on him filled him with unexplainable panic now.

Aziraphale gripped the edge of the sofa, pushing himself up slowly and painfully. His head throbbed and he wanted to reach over to the wall to steady himself. And yet, he could not bring himself to touch the walls, the sudden fear of them crushing him under their weight filling his thoughts. Tears were starting to well up in his eyes again when a sound broke through his sheer panic.

“Angel!” Crowley’s voice had never felt more like a relief. The angel turned to the side to see him barrelling over the threshold and locking his eyes on him, his face filled with worry.

“Crowley…” he muttered and extended his arms in his direction, the demon quick to move closer and grab him by the forearms to steady him. “I- I need to go outside. I need to leave _now_.”

Pain was evident in Crowley’s golden eyes, but he nodded and began to lead him toward the entrance.

“It’s alright angel, you are alright. You just need a breath of fresh air, s’all.” He spoke in a low, soft voice as if he were afraid that Aziraphale might jump at the presence of sudden noises. And in a way, he thought, he was right.

As they passed by a low bookshelf near the entrance, Aziraphale bumped hard against it, sending a pile of books tumbling down on the floor in a mess of torn pages and bent covers. His first instinct was to bend down to pick them up, but as soon as he reached for one of the books, his hand recoiled of its own accord. He immediately felt that he didn't have it in him to touch any of them, the sole idea sending a chill of fear down his spine. He was breathing hard again, staring at the books as though they might be about to jump up and attack him. As though they could bury him down with them.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley asked gently, tugging on his arm.

The angel shook off the demon’s hold and ran outside in panic, slamming the door hard behind him. He bent down, placing his hand on his knees and trying to regain a breath that should not have been necessary for him but now felt like his only anchor. He could not have said how long he stayed there, bent over amidst the white, cold snow, ignoring the slaps of steely wind and trying to make sense of whatever was happening inside his head.

After several staggered breaths, he began to feel the surge of panic and fear die down, allowing his vision to clear and his breathing to become more regular. And with that newly found relief, shame followed. He felt ashamed at having left Crowley in there when he had been so quick to come to his rescue, at having ignored those books on the floor, giving into an irrational fear. He could not explain how such thoughts about his bookshop had taken hold into his mind, but he still felt their echoes rumbling in the back of his consciousness.

Aziraphale hurried back inside, finding Crowley kneeling down on the floor to pick up the fallen books one by one. He had a look of misery on his face - as if he had realised something that he found hard to accept - while he performed small demonic miracles on every book to fix the creased pages and return the covers to their previous state. He looked up when the angel re-entered the bookshop, his features a mask of worry.

Aziraphale felt a wave of affection - the first true feeling that he was in control of since he had woken up from the nightmare - at the sight of Crowley taking care of his bookshop in the same careful, meticulous way that he would have done under normal circumstances. He let himself drop down next to the demon, ever so slowly reaching for a book and gripping it tightly with shaking hands. He flinched a little at the feeling of a warm hand setting down on his shoulders but did not pull away.

“Aziraphale, what’s wrong? What are you feeling?”

That simple question was all it took for the angel to break down, the wave of fear then regret and shame that he had experienced crashing down on him. Tears clouded his vision once more as he blindly reached over, finding Crowley’s shoulders and pulling him into a desperate embrace. He felt the demon tense up for a moment, but he quickly relaxed and brought his arms up to return the hug. Aziraphale was shaking and gulping with tears, but Crowley’s arms were warm and steady, keeping him anchored and preventing him from falling even deeper into his own sea of emotions.

A hand snaked up his neck and settled among his hair, softly cradling the back of his head. In other circumstances, Aziraphale would have been surprised and maybe even inquired about the nature of the gesture. But now, he simply leaned into the touch, grateful for Crowley’s presence, and pulled the demon even closer to himself.

“I, I’ve had a terrible dream.” He finally murmured after a few minutes.

Crowley was silent for a short while, his hand still stroking Aziraphale’s hair in slow circular motions. He finally spoke in a raw voice that gave Aziraphale the impression that he had also been crying. “Let’s get you comfortable, shall we, angel?”

They moved slowly back to the sofa where they sat next to each other like they had done only a handful of hours before in completely different spirits. Crowley did not pry him for answers, and instead waited for Aziraphale to find the strength to speak, as he attempted to put into words the range of emotions and feelings that had overwhelmed him that night. He still did not remember the dream he had had in detail but could recall the sensations it had given him and the ones that had followed his awakening. Crowley listened to everything with a neutral expression, although his right arm around the angel’s shoulders occasionally tensed up while something resembling a flash of fury became nearly visible in his eyes.

“Don’t listen to nightmares, angel. They always lie” The demon said once Aziraphale had fallen silent. “And you are perfectly safe in the bookshop. It is home.”

Through his pained numbness, Aziraphale distantly noticed that he had not called it _his_ home only. Crowley continued, “I think humanity is finally rubbing off on you.”

Aziraphale raised his head to give him a puzzled look. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, that sounded a lot like a mad drunken dream. Humans have them all the time, y’know. You must have at least one to get the full human experience deal.”

The angel huffed. “When you talked about having the full human package, I did not think that _this_ would be included. Quite a rubbish deal, if you ask me.”

Crowley chuckled, pulling him closer. “You’re right there, angel. Real rubbish.”

And so they spent the rest of the night, enveloped in each other’s embrace and offering comfort to one another while the hours flew by. The demon came up with the most ridiculous topics to distract Aziraphale from his own thoughts - he even tried to get him to see eye to eye with him on his treatment of house plants, to which the angel firmly refused by patting his chest playfully - and he almost managed to forget why he had been so scared in the first place.

Once the light of sunrise had fully illuminated the bookshop in shades of gold and pink, Crowley offered to let Aziraphale rest on his own for a bit, promising to return that afternoon. Aziraphale agreed, even though having the demon there for the whole day sounded very far from a bother, and was repaid with Crowley’s fondest smile as he was about to leave.

“What do you say about the Ritz tonight?” He asked, his golden eyes bursting with light as a sunray got caught up in them.

Aziraphale beamed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

✦

Fury was quick to fill Crowley’s mind once more as soon as he left the angel’s place, burning through his veins with such intensity that he feared he might set the Bentley’s steering wheel on fire. He slammed the front door of his empty apartment with a hollow sound, images of Aziraphale in pain and scared beyond understanding from the past night flashing through his mind. Watching the angel experiencing such levels of fear and recoil at the sight of his bookshop had made it perfectly clear to him which object of love Krampus had chosen to feed on. His hands closed in fists at the memory, the anger and pain he had felt at seeing him in that state still a fresh wound in his mind. He had been tempted to explain to Aziraphale what had happened, but he had seen how shaken the angel was and decided against it. He did not need to know that a creature as vile as Krampus had had access to his emotions.

He was about to head toward his bedroom to rest for a few hours, when the phone on his desk rang loudly, breaking the silence. Crowley looked at it in confusion. Aziraphale was the only one who would ever call him on that number, and he wondered why he would phone him so soon after they had seen each other. Nonetheless, he picked it up and answered. “Hello?”

“Crowley.” It was indeed the angel’s voice on the other side, and Crowley could not help the small smile opening on his face.

“Hello there, angel. Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale’s voice sounded slightly monotone. “Everything is fine. I just phoned to let you know that it is really not necessary for you to come back today. I’m feeling much better.”

Crowley’s heart dropped in his chest, the words hitting him in painful blows. “What do you mean, Aziraphale? It’s no bother, you know that. I _want_ to come see you.”

“Yes, well, today is not the best time. I’m quite busy with the bookshop at the moment. Customers won’t just send themselves away.” The angel’s laugh held no mirth, sounding stiff and forced.

Crowley had no idea how to react, taken aback by Aziraphale’s cold words. He could not even remember the last time he’d talked to him in such a detached way, almost in dismissal. He wondered if Krampus had attacked him again, but he did not hear a trace of the characteristic fear or panic that usually came as a side effect of their powers.

“Angel,” He spoke slowly and carefully. “Did you have another episode like the one from last night, by any chance? How are you feeling?”

Aziraphale’s voice now sounded slightly annoyed, gripping Crowley’s heart in an aching fist. “I said I’m fine, Crowley. No need to worry. I am simply far too busy with other matters to see you today, alright?”

Crowley fumbled for words, trying to keep the angel on the line longer. “Aziraphale, wait! Is something wrong?”

“Goodbye, Crowley.” The line went dead, ringing with low rhythmic hums in his ear.

The demon found himself shaking as he leaned on the desk, his hand still gripping the phone in desperation, willing Aziraphale’s voice to return, to tell him to come back to him. But only dead silence followed, falling heavy on him and forcing him down on his chair. Each of the angel’s words had opened a painful wound, and he had done it in such a cold and careless way, almost as if every second on the line with Crowley had bothered him deeply. He could barely recognise him as the same person from the previous night, and yet it was his Aziraphale, Crowley had no doubt. Well, he thought as he fought back angry tears, surely not _his_.

He leaned back on the chair, unable to stop shaking, as unwanted thoughts crept into his mind, pulling up fears that he had worked hard to bury as deeply as he could. The demon shook his head in an attempt to rid himself of them, but they kept arising in tidal waves, preventing him from thinking clearly and filling him instead with cold, unbearable fear. Maybe Aziraphale had finally come to the conclusion that Crowley had been dreading since he had first met him, a voice murmured in his mind. That by a demon’s side truly was no fit place for him.

Crowley could not bring himself to let go of the phone, still holding onto a glimmer of hope that the angel’s voice might arise from it again.

It did not.

✦

Krampus considered themselves quite lucky to have been assigned that job. They had never had a feast quite like this one in the entirety of their existence. Ripping part of that angel’s love for his flimsy shop had tasted sweeter than they had expected, but what they were taking from Crowley was simply phenomenal.

It had been awfully degrading to play the act of a scared demon who believed in his empty threats about holy water. However, seeing the traitor shake with fear while Krampus stole from him bits and pieces of the most precious - and, after the previous night, unguarded - love he possessed more than made up for it.

The most amusing part had been admiring the pained conversation he had had with a phone that had never received a call.

Clearly, Crowley had not been aware of their ability to instill visions as a consequence of using their power, and Krampus was very much glad for it. His ignorance had allowed them to enjoy quite a show of a lovefool demon crying his heart out over an angel’s rejection.

They grinned widely as they gave one last hard pull on the whip, repaid with another flash of burning emotions and a violent shake of Crowley’s shoulders. They let the whip slowly fall off the oblivious demon’s middle and return to them in a flicking motion.

Then, Krampus stood and watched, satisfied at the heavy pain hanging in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To relieve any tension from the ending of this chapter, may I suggest prolonged screaming out of the window?
> 
> Also, for anyone who is not familiar with the eternal battle between Italian pandoro and panettone, they are both traditional desserts during the Christmas time. They are fairly similar but panettone includes raisins and dried fruits, so it tends to be a little sweeter. Every Christmas Day, Italy is divided in factions that fight for the dominance of one of the two desserts. A winner hasn't been proclaimed yet, to my knowledge.  
> I am personally a firm believer in the supremacy of pandoro, but I have been informed by another Aziraphale (who was patient enough to answer my questions) that Azi would probably prefer panettone. But let it be clear that I'm with Crowley on this one.
> 
> If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider leaving kudos or comments. And as always, screaming in the comments is welcome and it does not necessarily have to make sense.


	3. Oh, how the pain pounds, Raising its sounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t need something to happen to say the truth, angel.” Crowley spat out that last word, and Aziraphale nearly flinched in pain. “You’re turning this into a bigger deal than it is.”
> 
> “Am I, now?” The angel hated how vulnerable his voice came out. “Is it really that foolish of me to think that we- that things might be different now that we’re free? That they could become more?” 
> 
> Crowley remained silent, his eyes widening a little behind the dark lenses but remaining unreadable. Aziraphale found that he was holding his breath now, his heartbeat thundering so loudly in his ears that he feared he might not hear the demon’s response.
> 
> Crowley put a hand on his shoulder, and his heart dared leap with hope for one blissful moment.
> 
> “Actually, I think it is.”

Aziraphale hadn’t thought he would ever mind the silence that tended to fall upon its bookshop.

It had always been a comforting sensation, enveloping the whole place in a peaceful quiet that he hardly ever experienced anywhere else. It snaked through the rows of bookshelves and settled slowly on every surface, giving Aziraphale’s home an almost otherworldly appearance that he had learned to welcome with a smile.

But the silence that surrounded him now shared no quality with the peace he was so familiar with. This silence felt heavy and oppressing, bearing down on his shoulders with incredible force and thickening the air until he was nearly gasping for breath. The angel found that he could derive no comfort from the place that he had come to consider his home on Earth, with every object, every wall seemingly leaning down on him in an attempt to block his way.

Aziraphale’s bookshop felt like a prison.

He tried to shake away that thought, unwilling to fall once more in the ocean of despair that had nearly drowned him the previous night. It subsided slightly, but he could sense it rumbling in the back of his mind, making him unable to fully pull his focus away from it. Aziraphale still could not fathom how his thoughts had been poisoned in such a quick and sudden way, leaving him no room to reason with or comprehend any of them. And yet, Crowley had sounded so sure when he had told him not to listen to nightmares, his voice ringing so much louder than any vicious whispers in his head.

So, Aziraphale filled his mind with thoughts of Crowley.

He looked at the entrance of the bookshop bathed in the bright morning light and recalled the demon crouching down in a darkened version of it and picking up a pile of books, taking care of what the angel held dear to his heart when he himself could not. He let a hand run over the edge of the sofa, its cushions bent at peculiar angles since the previous night, and the ghost of Crowley’s touch as he had gently led him to it made him shiver. The echoes of merry laughs and words flew through his head, while the memory of falling asleep on a solid shoulder filled the empty space above the sofa. It brought with itself sensations of hands running through his hair and arms wrapping him tightly, and Aziraphale unconsciously brought his own hand up to his curls, wondering if those were mere wishful dreams.

Whatever their nature, the angel sensed them taking over the wave of fear and panic that threatened to hit him, and he smiled at Crowley’s presence saving him again even without the demon being physically there. Except, a realisation creeped up in Aziraphale, so much of him was.

He could pinpoint Crowley’s favourite spots around the bookshop as easily as his own, the exact seat he would sprawl over when they were having dinner or the precise corner where he was most likely to find him asleep in a tangle of snaking spires and scales. At a certain point, the sofa had acquired a new blanket on top of Aziraphale’s tartan cover, tinged in shades of red and gold - the angel had bought it from a shop at the end of the street and had greatly enjoyed Crowley’s surprised reaction at the sight of it. Even the few customers who resisted his deflection techniques long enough to get a word in edgewise seemed to consider the demon a stable aspect of the place.

And, Aziraphale admitted to himself, so had he.

Crowley had extended a hand, slithering into the life of the bookshop in slow and subtle ways, but _he_ had been the one to take it, creating places for him to occupy. And never had a job been easier or sweeter than opening up space for the demon in his existence. It had felt simple and natural when he had first agreed to the Arrangement and even more so when he had made the decision to let Crowley’s presence turn the shop into a home.

_Home,_ the word whirled around in his mind.

Crowley had called it that, too. Had he meant a home for both of them? Were they even allowed the choice to build a home for themselves? Aziraphale had found it very hard to believe for a long time - well, all of time, to be precise - but his days felt more free now, his heart beat a slower rhythm, and Crowley’s smile had never shone more brightly. So, the angel found himself entertaining the idea that maybe they had already unknowingly started to build a shared home, right there among his books, between a late-night dinner and a morning walk together. And the more he thought about it, the more something became strikingly clear to him. He did not want the bookshop to be his home if Crowley could not be a part of it.

Aziraphale made a decision right there and then, and, like any other decision he had ever made about the demon, it came as easy and natural as the smallest of miracles.

He would tell Crowley.

He would tell him how his regular presence those last few months had mended so many empty holes in Aziraphale’s existence, some he had not even been aware of himself. He would tell him about the sense of warmth and comfort that surged in him whenever he found the demon asleep anywhere in the shop, proof that he felt safe enough to let down his guard. He would tell him that he did not need to be the one extending the hand this time, because he would do it for him, would be delighted to do it for him from now on.

But before all that, Aziraphale would tell him that, that…

He played with the word in his mind, trying to imagine what it would sound like once pronounced out loud and how right it would feel on his lips. It held the weight of centuries of friendship and all the things that had gone unspoken throughout them, and yet it felt no heavier than a human breath when the angel finally found the courage to speak it in the empty shop.

“I _love_ you.” He waited a second before adding “Crowley” just because he adored saying that name.

Explosions that felt a lot like burning fireworks went off in his head, as an almost giddy sensation sprung out of the words he had just uttered. Aziraphale did not even notice that the angry waves of fear had been wiped away completely, lost as he was in revelling in the warmth that such a short sentence had brought.

Oh, he could nearly imagine the smile that would open on Crowley’s face - the one that had never been directed at anything or anyone else aside from him - and the way that the gold in his eyes would seem like liquid metal, twirling and glinting with light of its own. Or, at least, that was the reaction that Aziraphale hoped these words would produce. He interrupted such thoughts before his imagination could create any more scenarios and simply let himself be taken over by a resolute calm.

He had made his decision. He was ready to take the demon’s hand and never let go of it again, if he would let him. All he needed to do now was wait for Crowley.

And so the angel waited with a book in hand and his eyes fixed on the pages, although his thoughts were elsewhere entirely, in a future that finally seemed so easy to grasp and hold on to. He waited for the familiar ring of the bell from the front door of the bookshop and the sauntering figure that would follow it with hair set aflame by the late afternoon light.

But Crowley never came.

He did not come when the shadows of the bookshelves became longer and longer, stretching themselves with each tick of the clock’s hands. He did not come even when those shadows disappeared, engulfed in the darkness of the evening and leading the way for the glow of the strings of lights hung around the shop. Aziraphale tried very hard not to think anything of it, even though his hands were clasping the book tighter than they needed. He knew Crowley liked to sleep. He had clearly fallen asleep after the terrible night Aziraphale had made him spend, and he was not going to be the one to rudely wake him up in the middle of a nap.

However, when the clock reminded him with a cruel snapping sound that the hour by which they would have usually already been at the Ritz had passed a while back, the angel began to wring his hands in worry, a million possibilities that might explain the demon’s absence flashing through his mind.

Had his Head Office decided to retaliate against him? Impossible, Aziraphale would have surely sensed such a strong demonic presence in London, and he could not imagine that happening so easily after the lasting impression that him splashing in a tub of holy water had left on the demons of Hell. Had Crowley been attacked by a single revengeful demon or - Aziraphale dared not entertain that option - by angels in an attempt to separate them? Was he still somehow sleeping off the worry from the previous night and had forgotten to check the time? As much as he wanted to believe that innocuous answer, since he had first met him, the angel had never witnessed Crowley miss a single one of their meetings, especially the ones he had suggested himself.

Or, a quiet voice suggested from the back of his mind, maybe he had simply decided not to come, Aziraphale’s show of irrational fear and panic having convinced him to spend some time away from him.

The angel refused to let that idea sink in and stood up in a quick motion, moving towards the phone. He would call Crowley and put his own mind at ease. _Everything is fine_ was the mantra that he kept repeating to himself, as he reached for the handset.

✦

It was no difficult task for ethereal and occult beings alike to sense miracles from the opposite side. Even the smaller ones were easily detectable, for example those performed by Aziraphale every time he expected his unplugged rotary phone to work flawlessly. It was quite a different - and much more complicated - matter to intercept them and redirect or even stop their effect. Since angelic miracles were made of intrinsically different essences than demonic ones, it was nearly impossible for someone to capture a miracle produced by a being of the other side and prevent its effect from happening.

However, Krampus had just had a very satisfying meal and felt their powers tingle at their fingertips as the angel’s miracle lifted itself over the roof of the shop. It was certainly worth a try.

The demon had returned to that blessedly boring shop after spending almost the entire day watching Crowley being miserable around his apartment. They had stayed to make sure Crowley believed the imaginary phone call he’d had and did not leave to go see his dear angel, but, if they had to be completely honest - not that they valued honesty all that much - they had also enjoyed admiring the other demon’s pain far more than they thought possible. It had been a quite amusing sight, and they had gotten several laughs out of it.

But Krampus needed to make sure that their hard work would not be ruined by the annoying principality. So, they observed closely while he hurried to compose a number on a human telephone, his face a mask of worry. They could nearly taste the angelic essence rising from the device as the miracle composed itself, ready to reach a different phone in London. Right before it could speed up and travel to its destination, however, the demon made a stopping motion, channelling as much of the energy they had recently acquired as possible and willing the miracle to halt in its path.

The ethereal spark wavered a little before falling still, hovering above the roof of the building. Krampus painstakingly pulled some of their concentration away from the act to make sure that the angel hadn’t noticed anything. They were pleased to see that he was still waiting for his call to go through, a hand clasping the phone handset much too tightly.

_Time to wrap up the show_ , they thought as they made the call reach its completion mid-air, a message that they knew would sound familiar to the angel appearing at the dead end of the miracled communication line and returning to its owner. Krampus lowered their arms and reined in whatever energy they had left while snickering at the other’s face twisting into a pained expression. Much like his demon had done actually, they laughed by themselves.

_Hi, this is Anthony Crowley. You know what to do. Do it with style._ They could hear the traitor’s voice rolling out of the handset, sounding as genuine as the original, and they stretched their mouth in a proud sneer. Their satisfaction grew even further as they listened to the message left by the angel in a woeful voice. “Hello Crowley. It’s, well, me. I’m calling to check in and make sure you’re alright. You haven’t come around to the bookshop today and I’ve gotten quite worried, especially because we had planned to… well, no matter. I hope everything is fine, dear boy, please do call me back if you can.”

The words flew out of the device and popped away into thin air a few metres over the bookshop. Crowley’s voice mailbox remained empty and silent.

Krampus would have enjoyed watching the whole array of worried and confused expressions pass through the principality’s face as fear slowly took hold of him, but the legs of their corporation suddenly gave out, dropping them to the ground. Blocking that blessed miracle must have taken a bigger toll on them than they had expected, draining almost all of the power they had so carefully collected. The demon was tempted to steal some more from the oblivious angel, but they did not feel strong enough to face the defences that his essence had surely put up. So, they settled on hiding outside the shop, waiting to regain their strength and ensuring that the angelic lovefool would not make a run for his demon.

Not much time had passed when a buzzing voice surged in their head, making their eyes snap open. _Krampuzzz, you haven’t reported anything back yet! What izzz happening?_

Krampus tried to keep the annoyance out of their voice. “I need concentration while I work, Lord Beelzebub. I cannot be constantly _reporting_.”

The voice rose in anger with a choir of whirring sounds. _I suggest you moderate your tone when you speak to me. Now you will tell me what you’ve been doing and I will judge if you’re still of any use up there._

“Oh, you’ll find that I am.” The demon smiled, as they sent the Lord of Hell enough images and information to satisfy them. “It shouldn’t be long now before I’ll have the traitors for you on a silver platter.”

_We’ll only be collecting Crowley. I want as little to do with that angel as possible. Heaven will take care of him._

Then, while Beelzebub proceeded to give them the instructions on how to prepare both of them to be collected, Krampus stood up in a flashing motion. It was hard to focus with the buzz of flies and the screams from Hell in their head, but they could feel _something_ was missing. In the duration of that short conversation, Krampus had lost something that they could not quite place.

Then, it clicked. They could not feel the presence of the angel inside the bookshop anymore.

“I have to go” they growled to Beelzebub’s voice in their head. “There’s something I need to catch.”

✦

Something was wrong with Crowley, Aziraphale was sure of it. He could not quite put a finger on it, but the longer he tried to come up with options in his head the scarier they became. Crowley not answering the phone or even calling him back after a full hour had passed was all the proof he needed to be certain. So, he had grabbed his coat, ignoring the silent phone taunting him from the other end of the room, and miracled himself halfway to Mayfair.

Once he took a moment to find his bearings, Aziraphale set to walking as fast as his legs would carry him in the direction of Crowley’s flat. He had thought about getting himself there right away, but so many voices in his head were screaming about a retaliation from either of their Head Offices, and he had decided to reach the building by foot in case he needed to rescue the demon from any attackers. He barely even felt the sting of the cold wind or noticed the ice on the sidewalk that made walking a nearly impossible feat. He simply coated his own feet in steadying miracles and pushed himself to move even faster. The angel’s mind was focused only on Crowley, on getting to him as fast as possible, on protecting him.

As he dashed around a corner, a whisper infiltrated his thoughts, and Aziraphale could not tell whether it was imagination or memory.

_He won’t remember you._

A shiver ran down his back, and the wind seemed to carry these words around, filling the air with them. He slowed down.

_He will just not care._

They sounded so loud and vivid to stop Aziraphale dead in his tracks. He could not remember a time when he had heard those words, and yet they filled him with an unexplainable dread. He could feel his resolution already slipping away, his focus being pulled to different, darker thoughts.

Then, Aziraphale felt Crowley’s presence.

The sensation immediately took over his mind, as he felt the demon so close to give him the impression he could simply reach over to touch him. He opened his eyes to see that he was only a few hundred metres away from the entrance of Crowley’s building.

He set off on a run. Only a few more seconds, a few more heartbeats. He was almost there.

✦

It took Crowley less than a split second to jump on his feet when he sensed a familiar presence nearing his flat.

Aziraphale was there.

The memory of the phone call still burned painfully in his mind, but he felt a spark of hope rising in his chest nonetheless. He was by the front door in a matter of seconds, unwilling to wait the time necessary to get up to the flat to see the angel’s face. He needed to see Aziraphale _now_.

His hand hesitated over his sunglasses for a moment before Crowley grabbed them and put them on. He did not like the dark circles around his eyes that his reflection in the mirror had thrown back at him.

Then, he was out of the door.

✦

Crowley beat Aziraphale to the entrance. His lean figure barrelled over the threshold, gripping the doorframe to steady himself, while his hair moved in the wind like flecks of fire. His gaze fell on the angel as soon as he regained his balance, his face opening in a tentative smile. Aziraphale was floored by the rush of relief that fell over him at the sight of the demon, and it took him a couple of seconds to regain enough control over his legs to make the final few steps in Crowley’s direction.

One step. Two steps. Was that fear he caught in Crowley’s gaze? His heart clenched at the mere thought.

Another step. His hands were trembling at the same rhythm of his racing heart. The sunglasses slid down the demon’s nose, gifting him with the sight of a pair of golden eyes shining with as much eagerness as he felt. The grip around his heart eased a bit.

One more step. Aziraphale could have touched Crowley’s face if only he reached out with his arm.

And then something shifted. The image in front of the angel’s eyes changed ever so slightly, and Crowley’s face dropped into a neutral expression.

Aziraphale stopped before making the last step, taken aback. Now, it was Crowley who moved towards him. And yet, that single step seemed stiff and forced, as if done against his will.

He tried to get rid of that feeling. Crowley was in front of him. He was fine.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale sent a wide smile his way. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” His voice came out colder than Aziraphale had expected.

“Well, you, uhm, I haven’t seen you all day and you haven’t been answering the phone.” He hesitated a moment. “Is everything alright?”

“Sure thing, angel.” Aziraphale did not like the way he pronounced the endearment, as if it held no meaning. “I just had some business to attend to. You know I like to keep busy.”

Crowley flashed a grin that felt profoundly wrong.

“Yes, but we were meant to have dinner at the Ritz tonight, remember? I-”

He was interrupted by the demon exclaiming, “Oh right, yeah! Must have slipped my mind, sorry about that.”

The nonchalant tone caught Aziraphale’s heart in a tight grip, as the worry he had felt until a moment ago quickly morphed into a bitter taste in his mouth. He tried to maintain a neutral expression, but Crowley still read his eyes flawlessly. As he had always done.

“Surely,” He put his hands in his pockets. “You’re not upset over that, right?”

“I’m not upset.” Aziraphale’s voice gained a sharp edge against his will. Crowley’s words felt surreal, and anger rose in his chest at having the demon right in front of him and yet feeling as if they were talking through an invisible wall.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. “I was _worried_ , Crowley. You never showed up and didn’t even bother to leave a word, while I-“

The words he had been about to say died in his throat at the sight of Crowley’s face. His brows were slightly pinched, his mouth set in a thin line. Aziraphale recognised his expression of annoyance. The one that would usually be directed at the commendations from Hell or at certain humans. Not at him, never at him.

He hesitated before finishing the sentence. “I thought it wasn’t something you could forget that easily, that’s all.”

Crowley huffed, one of his hands shooting up in a gesture of exasperation. “What do you mean, Aziraphale? It was just a dinner, we’ve had plenty of those.”

Again words rose up in the angel’s head, those he had been so prepared to say only mere hours ago. Again he pushed them back. “I thought dinners and, and moments like this one meant more than simply _that._ ”

“You’re being ridiculous. What, are we supposed to be joint at the hip now?”

Aziraphale widened his eyes in disbelief, as the familiar voice he had come to draw comfort from hit him square in the chest with the words of a stranger. How could this be Crowley, _his_ Crowley?

“You know that’s not what I meant, Crowley! Why are you talking this way? Did something happen?”

And then the demon _sneered_. He sneered at him, and his face twisted in a sickening way that for a second drowned out everything in it that was inherently _Crowley_. Aziraphale pretended not to feel the tinge of fear in the back of his head.

“I don’t need something to happen to say the truth, _angel_.” He spat out that last word, and Aziraphale nearly flinched in pain. “You’re turning this into a bigger deal than it is.”

“Am I, now?” The angel hated how vulnerable his voice came out, but this time he gave voice to the torrent of thoughts in his mind. “Is it really that foolish of me to think that we- that things might be different now that we’re free? That they could become more?”

Crowley remained silent, his eyes widening a little behind the dark lenses but remaining unreadable. Aziraphale found that he was holding his breath now, his heartbeat thundering so loudly in his ears that he feared he might not hear the demon’s response. His mind drifted briefly to the reaction he had envisioned back at the bookshop, when he had made the biggest and yet easiest decision of his life. It stung painfully to compare the expression he had imagined with the hollow one staring him down right now.

Crowley put a hand on his shoulder, and his heart dared leap with hope for one blissful moment.

“Actually, I think it is.”

Aziraphale’s whole body tensed as if absorbing a punch, and he could feel a hollow pulsing pain in his chest. He found he was unable to think clearly, managing only to search Crowley’s face looking for a sign, a look, _anything_ that would prove that what he had just heard was not real.

Instead, the demon returned his gaze with a stretched out smile, a pitiful smile, and continued, “You’ve always been one for overthinking, Aziraphale. How about you live your own existence and I live mine, uh?”

He abruptly stepped back, slipping out of Crowley’s touch. The latter did not seem to care about his hand closing around empty air just to fall limply by his side. “You can’t mean that, Crowley.”

A moment of silence. A thunderous heartbeat. “I do.”

Aziraphale drew a shaky breath. His legs were trembling violently, and his vision swam in a pool of quickly forming tears. But his voice ringed strong and clear as he said, “I’ll leave you to your own existence, then”

He turned around sharply and began to walk away. The image in front of his eyes seemed to shift once more, but he could not be sure of it while he was trying furiously to push back tears.

He walked on as he found that he could not quite draw a breath. When he felt the first tear running down his cheek, he still kept on walking. And by the time he noticed tears falling onto the pavement, he had already broken into a run.

Crowley never called after him.

✦

The echo of Aziraphale’s cold voice rising from the telephone had been reduced to an easily ignored whisper as soon as Crowley had laid eyes on the angel moving towards him. He had barely been able to maintain his balance as he had rushed to the entrance of the building, and yet his legs had been locked in place the moment Aziraphale had returned his gaze. The sight of his eyes, blue and limpid like the summer sky, instantly filled him with warmth, and he found himself smiling without having ordered his facial muscles to move.

So many emotions chased each other across Aziraphale’s face that Crowley could barely keep track of any of them. Above all, however, towered an immense look of relief which visibly relaxed the angel’s features. The demon did not have time to wonder the reason for it because Aziraphale began to walk in his direction, his eyes capturing his own in a steady gaze. Each step resonated with a simultaneous pang of his heart, and Crowley did not care that his sunglasses were slowly slipping down his nose. He did not care that the dark circles hung heavy around his eyes in plain sight, because the angel was there. He was there right in front of him. He only needed to reach out with an arm to touch his face. He was tempted to.

Something shifted abruptly in Crowley’s vision. He could not quite place it but everything in his field of vision somehow moved imperceptibly. So did Aziraphale’s face, assuming a grave expression that sent a shiver down his spine.

However, he had still not shaken off his smile when he spoke. “Hi, angel.”

Aziraphale’s countenance had become a neutral mask, but his eyes betrayed a sharp look. “Did you lie to me, Crowley?”

Crowley sucked in a breath, looking at the angel in confusion and feeling his heartbeats pushing through his chest. “I- what? Why are you asking me that?”

He was met with a disbelieving look that seemed so wrong on Aziraphale’s soft features. His tone sounded like an accusation as he replied. “The nightmares I had last night. They weren’t simple human dreams, were they?”

The demon gripped the edge of the doorframe tighter, his eyes desperately trying to read the other’s face. He felt a sudden fear creeping up at the edge of his thoughts as he wondered how Aziraphale had come to that conclusion. He did not like the options his mind came up with. “Why are you saying that, Aziraphale? What happened?”

“Nothing happened!” The angel snapped at him with unexpected fury, and Crowley hated himself for nearly taking a step back. “Answer the question.”

He hesitated a moment before shaking his head.

“And you knew about it.” The clear disappointment in Aziraphale’s voice sent a painful blow to his stomach. It was an emotion that he was familiar with, he had seen it on the angel’s face countless times every time he had come back from a meeting in Heaven. But he had never heard it directed at him, never felt Aziraphale’s presence as heavy and imposing as it was now. He had never felt _guilty_ in front of Aziraphale.

He fumbled for words, willing the angel to understand. “I did know, but, but let me explain, angel! I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” Crowley tried oh so hard to ignore the mocking tone of that sentence. Aziraphale had never mocked him, not once, in the entirety of their shared existence. Aziraphale would never. And yet Aziraphale continued, closing his grip on the demon’s heart even further. “I don’t need _you_ to protect me, Crowley. I only need you to tell me the truth, if you please.”

“Angel,” Crowley tried to speak in a soft tone despite the desperate screaming in his head, moving slowly towards him. “Please, listen to me. I never meant to lie to you, I thought you were out of danger, I didn’t want you to-”

His voice cut off on its own when the angel took a visible step back. The sound of his feet shuffling on the concrete resonated in the demon’s ears over and over. He realised only then that he had raised his hands, about to touch Aziraphale’s arms. He slowly let them fall to his sides.

“I don’t want to hear any more excuses, Crowley.”

He widened his eyes, taken aback by how stranger the angel’s voice suddenly sounded to him. “They’re not excuses, I need you to understand. That bastard- the demon I told you about, Krampus, they took something from you, Aziraphale. Part of your love, they took it for themselves and used it to gain power. I got there too late to stop them, they’d already stolen it and-”

Aziraphale did not let him finish the sentence. “You should have just told me instead of lying.”

Crowley made an attempt to speak, to tell him that he’d only wanted to spare him more pain, that he could not bear to see him suffering that way, that he’d only meant for him to be _safe_. He was even prepared to tell Aziraphale that he would be glad to keep him safe for the rest of eternity and make sure that all that pain would only feel like a bad dream. And he was prepared to tell him a great deal more.

He never had the chance to say any of that because Aziraphale stretched his mouth in a severe line that painfully reminded him of other kinds of angels and said, “But I guess I should have expected it from a _demon_.”

Crowley was the one to take a step back now in a trembling and hurried manner, as if someone had just given him a hard push. His chest ached so much that he was convinced that his heart had stopped beating altogether. In his head a million whispers repeated the word _demon_ over and over, all wearing Aziraphale’s voice. He studied the angel’s face, his eyes pleading him to betray any other emotion that wasn’t cold judgement, cutting him like a knife.

“You don’t mean that.” His voice came out shaky and raw.

The angel waited no longer than a couple of seconds to respond. “Yes, I do.”

This was not real. It could not be real. Aziraphale would have never spoken like that, never demeaned him in the same way that the pompous archangels up in Heaven liked to do. He was kind and loving and he lit up the room whenever he appeared. He would never.

But Aziraphale was in front of him now, and no light emanated from him as his eyes met Crowley’s. The familiar shine that Crowley loved so dearly was gone, as if it had never been there.

Then, the angel turned around without a word and walked away, leaving him alone in the silence of the night.

✦

If somebody a week before had told Krampus that they would be trying to use their powers on two immortal beings at the same time, they would have laughed loudly in their face. They were many things - greedy, stubborn, relentless - but they were not stupid. Not even at their full strength would they have had enough power to steal emotions from two non-human individuals simultaneously. It just wasn’t done.

And yet, there they were doing just that. And it felt simply _exhilarating_. Krampus could have laughed out loud in sheer satisfaction if their concentration hadn’t been fully needed just to maintain their grip on the two whips. It had nearly discorporated them to break their whip in two parts as the few remnants of power still residing in it dissipated into thin air. On the other hand, it had been a relatively easy feat to get them to attach to their targets. The emotions of the two traitors had been so bare and exposed while they looked at each other that Krampus could have almost taken them with bare hands.

But the best part - what the demon had already started to refer to in their mind as their _masterpiece_ \- had been stealing just enough from them that the resulting fear would prevent them from even seeing each other. So, an angel and a demon were now staring at one another without actually _seeing_ anything, each living his own personal nightmare that the other was unaware of. And by the sounds of it, it seemed that they were currently hurting each other quite badly.

Krampus sneered, _The perks of a true romance._

And so it went, with Crowley rambling into the wind about protecting his angel and said angel trying and failing to pour his heart out. And neither of them heard a word the other said.

When they finally separated, Krampus felt their energy replenished and was almost disappointed that the show was over. Almost.

✦

Aziraphale was numb. He distantly registered the sounds of the occasional car or passerby brave enough to face the chill of winter at the first rays of sunrise, but his head was throbbing painfully, Crowley’s voice speaking in it on a loop. Crowley telling him that he was being ridiculous. Crowley sneering at the mere suggestion that they could ever become more to each other. Crowley looking down on him and suggesting that he stop overthinking.

He wanted to press his hands on his ears and keep those voices out, but his strength was barely enough to keep walking. And so he let the demon’s tone - the one that had always, without fail, brought him comfort - run through his mind, hissing about just how ridiculous he was being.

The angel noticed that he had reached his bookshop only when a hand dropped heavily on his shoulder, making him look up in confusion.

“Hello, Aziraphale.” The towering figure of the archangel Gabriel sent a cold and emotionless grin his way, his grip tightening on his shoulder.

Aziraphale widened his eyes and attempted to jump back, the sudden panic pulling him out of his daze. He managed to shake Gabriel’s hand off his shoulder just to fall right into the hold of another pair of hands that grabbed him by the arms, forcing him still. Sandalphon’s nasal voice erupted from behind him. “It is very unwise to leave establishments such as this unguarded.”

He turned his gaze back to Gabriel, attempting to not let fear take over his features. He knew he had failed when the archangel’s smile grew even wider, glinting with satisfaction. He moved closer to Aziraphale, leaning in to bring his face at his same level.

“What’s the matter, Aziraphale?” He asked in an innocent tone, and his eyes glowed with a purple hue. “Something happened with your dear demon friend?”

Gabriel gestured to the bookshop with his arm, and Aziraphale noticed that the door had been broken in half, pieces of it hanging limply from the hinges and others lying shattered on the floor. “How about we talk inside?”

Sandalphon shoved Aziraphale toward the entrance, making him hit the edge of the doorframe hard. A sharp pain shot up his arm, and he stumbled inside, trying to remain standing.

As the two archangels filled his entire field of vision, he could not help but calling out to Crowley with a silent cry for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to you all angst-seekers for letting my schedule get thrown off this much. Please, blame adult life for being time-consuming and having absolutely no respect for fic writers. I'm planning on getting the last chapters to you in the following two weeks, and this time adult life will not be able to stop me. I have an infallible weapon called "winter break".
> 
> And if you enjoyed this, please consider leaving kudos and comment. If you have the sudden urge to scream into the void instead, you may also scream in the comments. This is a Screams Welcome area, I promise.


	4. Over love and shared force, Telling their verse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale's expression was devoid of any visible emotion, but Crowley knew how to read his angel and did not miss the resolution in his gaze. 
> 
> “Your emotions are so obvious, so easy to take!” Krampus was now rambling, lost in a sense of triumph. “I could tear them all away from you in a heartbeat.”
> 
> “Then take them.”
> 
> Crowey turned around wide-eyed to make sure that it had really been Aziraphale talking. He hissed, “Angel, what are you saying?”
> 
> Aziraphale ignored his question, his complete focus on Krampus. “You said you could so easily take them all. So, why don’t you?"

Aziraphale’s books had never known anything other than love.

Aside from residing right next to a principality - a quite literal being of love - their owner had made sure that not a single tear or stain would befall their pages, the course of years and centuries leaving them unscathed. The protective aura around them had ensured that even the most recalcitrant customers would instantly assume a careful attitude when handling them. And a particular demon had always been there to fix any damage that might have initially escaped the angel’s eye. Love was laced in every page, every cover of the books that had found their home in that bookshop.

Now, Aziraphale’s eyes encountered countless crumpled pages covering the wooden floor of the shop, bent books crushed under the weight of several fallen bookshelves and a layer of broken glass from the shattered windows and skylight. He felt tears prickling at his eyes as he witnessed the pointless destruction brought on by angelic fury, his hands closing into tight fists. He was quick to push them back when a hand fell on his shoulder again, violently shoving him further inside. He refused to give the archangels the satisfaction of seeing him stumble in panic and maintained a firm composure, straightening his back and turning around to face them.

Gabriel’s face still wore the same mocking grin. “It’s pitiful, Aziraphale, really. How much of your existence you wasted collecting…” He waved a hand around. “This. Human works that can get destroyed in moments and disappear forever. What utility does _this_ have to you?”

Aziraphale held his gaze, unflinching. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Gabriel, since you’re the one who destroyed it.”

The archangel’s expression darkened, a shadow of anger flashing in his eyes. He moved towards Aziraphale and began to circle around him, followed suit by Sandalphon. “I have no interest in humanity’s meaningless creations, and neither should you. We should have rectified your behaviour centuries ago.”

“And what behaviour would that be? _Caring_ for humanity and this world as was my duty?”

“Your duty,” Gabriel’s voice rose in volume, carrying with itself the force of Heaven. “Was to oversee this planet and, more importantly, oppose any demonic emissary. Not ally with them!”

Aziraphale felt the weight of the two archangels’ might pressing down on him, keeping him locked in place. The mention of Crowley, even in such a derisive manner, sent an agonizing blow to his stomach, memories from that night resurfacing in his mind like reopened wounds.

The slight shift in his expression did not go unnoticed, and Gabriel took advantage of it. “Too bad that your _ally_ is not here to help you out, Aziraphale. It seems you’re on your own now.”

Sandalphon snickered loudly as though he had heard a funny joke, but amusement vanished from his face in a matter of seconds like sand blown away by the wind as soon as the other archangel spoke again. “Well, no use discussing this any longer. You’ll have plenty of time to ponder on it in Heaven.”

Aziraphale attempted to step away from their nearing figures, but the two were relentlessly circling around him, trapping him in place. His only option was gaining some more time until he could come up with a way to escape their hold. “And what exactly do you have planned? I thought you had realised that hellfire won’t do the trick with me.”

“There are other options.” Replied Sandalphon with a stretched out grin. His golden tooth glinted in the faint light of sunrise streaming from the broken windows. Aziraphale and Gabriel alike waited a few moments for him to elaborate, but the archangel seemed content with the words he had uttered and crossed his arms in front of him.

Gabriel was the one to break the silence. “Now, Aziraphale, why would we destroy you when we can ensure that you get punished for the appropriate amount of time, instead? Which, in your case, is eternity.” He leaned in, and the weight on Aziraphale increased suddenly, forcing him to hunch his back. “Trust me, it’s going to be one hell of a show. Just the way you seem to like it.”

Panic flared up in the angel’s chest, as his limbs became increasingly heavier, making even breathing a nearly unbearable movement. He could almost see the angelic power trying to crush him down, as Heaven had always liked to do with any aspect of his existence it had reached. The idea that this moment - alone in the shattered remains of half of his bookshop, surrounded by the imposing presence of the archangels and their mocking words and without the only being that had ever made him feel like he mattered - would be his last one on Earth was enough to plummet his mind into a dark spiral of fear. He didn’t want it to be. It couldn’t be, not like that.

So, forcing his mind to interrupt its fall, he decided that it _wouldn’t_.

Gabriel made a small gesture to Sandalphon, who stepped closer to him and raised a hand towards his arm, his power already pushing Aziraphale’s body closer to him before the archangel had even touched him. Then, a split second before Sandalphon’s fingers could close around him, Aziraphale exercised his own power, pulling himself back. The force of a principality should have paled in comparison to the combined might of two archangels, but Aziraphale had the home advantage, gathering to himself all the bits of his ethereal essence residing in the shop, and the element of surprise. He pushed violently against the grasp holding him in place, and his body was finally free to stumble backwards and out of the spot he’d been trapped in.

Gabriel made a noise of exasperation and began to move in his direction, the hand raised in front of him closing into a tight fist. His energy still lingering in the air emulated the movement, once again attempting to bear down on Aziraphale and block him in place. The angel knew he could not fight against it with his own power a second time, now that he had lost the element of surprise, and wild desperation clawed at his chest as his movements slowed down once more.

“Please, Aziraphale,” Gabriel’s tone was calm, but he could detect a vein of anger snaking through it. “Refrain from pathetic escape attempts, will you?”

Aziraphale only replied with a burning stare, the condescending words igniting a furious fire inside him. He did the only thing he could think of, while Gabriel’s invisible chains became tighter and tighter.

He opened his wings in a flash of bright light, extending them to their full length.

The force of the motion shattered the bonds around him, cutting through the archangel’s essence like a knife and forcing him to take a few steps backwards. Aziraphale mentally laughed in satisfaction at the sight, commanding his wings to perform one wide movement. As soon as the starkly white feathers encountered the resistance from the air, he was pushed back by several metres, his feet barely grazing the wooden floor. The increased distance between him and the other two angels sent a wave of relief through his whole body, and his breathing became less laboured.

He was quick to move deeper into the bookshop, trying to lure them away from the front entrance so he could have a chance of escaping through it. But Aziraphale barely had time to formulate these thoughts before a loud creaking noise surrounded him. He looked up to see the bookshelf he had just hidden behind begin to fall on him pushed by an invisible force, the old wood bending and splintering with sharp sounds. His heart ached at seeing another bit of his bookshop crumbling to pieces, but he could not afford to use part of his power to miracle it intact. So, all he could do was jump out of the way and watch as countless books - books he had spent years and centuries carefully collecting and taking care of, each of them dear to his heart - crashed on the ground in an explosion of broken shelves and torn pages.

And there Gabriel and Sandalphon were, looking on as though only a speck of dust had fallen. They appeared perfectly composed, but the purple hue around Gabriel’s eyes shifted like storm clouds and betrayed his anger. The two archangels advanced towards Aziraphale once more, and he realised with a shot of fear that he would never make it to the front entrance. He took a step back and heard a pointed cracking sound as he stepped over shards of broken glass from the shattered skylight. He paused. Broken glass. Open skylight.

Aziraphale looked up, staring at the opening in the ceiling of the shop that had used to be a wide skylight and now stared back at him almost in invitation. His wings began to open again of their own accord.

“Close your wings, Aziraphale.” Gabriel intoned, his voice nearly trembling with rage. “Don’t make your punishment begin before we even get to Heaven.”

“Then I won’t.”

Aziraphale’s wings needed only one powerful motion to lift him up in the air, sending torn pages flying everywhere. He rose high enough to touch the ceiling. Then, he aimed for the skylight.

The space of the bookshop did not allow him much freedom to steer and turn, but the air running through his wing feathers and his hair was an exhilarating feeling nonetheless. Aziraphale would have smiled if he hadn’t been also trying to avoid attacks from the two archangels. Once he reached the space below the opening in the ceiling, he gave himself a strong push with his wings, feeling his back muscles tense with the strain of holding the movement. But he was rising, getting closer to the ceiling, closer to the early morning sky tinged in shades of pink and gold. One more beating of his wings. He was almost through the opening.

A sudden whirring noise erupted from below him, loud enough to make his eardrums ache. It was followed by a ghostly light, dancing on the walls with white and blue. Aziraphale’s eyes widened as he felt his heart drop to his stomach. He recognised that sound.

What followed happened in a split second, his brain barely able to register it all. Aziraphale looked down to see the summoning circle engraved in the floor lighting up with an intense glow, Gabriel and Sandalphon’s hands raised above it to activate it. Gabriel looked up with a malevolent grin, unsettling shadows shed on his face by the light from the circle. A glimmering column began to rise from the lines etched on the floor, making its way towards him. Aziraphale knew exactly where it would have taken him. He also knew that, if it caught up to him, he would not have a corporation to return to anymore. So, with a sick feeling to his stomach, he forced himself to steer away from the skylight, away from the open air just within his reach, and away from the column of light that arose like a waterfall in the wrong direction, missing him by a hair’s breadth.

He lost sight of the two archangels for only a moment. That moment was all they needed.

A sudden grip tugged at the base of his wings, pulling hard on them. His wing muscles screamed in pain as Aziraphale was forcefully thrown onto the ground. He hit the floor hard with his side exploding in a sharp ache, and he barely managed to repress a cry of pain. He retreated his agonizing wings a second before a pair of feet could step on them. A hand wrapped around his arm, gripping it so tight to hurt, and pulled him up on his knees.

The angel attempted to stand up, but suddenly a shooting pain erupted in his back as he felt a force grasping the space where his wings had been moments ago. He had tucked them into another plane of existence, they should have been invisible and unreachable to anyone until he decided to summon them again. And yet, the hand dove into the ether, crossing through the thick layer separating this world from the others, and physically _pulled_ his wings out. Aziraphale could no longer repress his screams of pain while his ethereal wings were forced back between his shoulder blades, gripped in such an excruciating hold that tears of agony filled his vision. And the pain did not stop once the wings were fully extended again, instead increasing even more as they were forced to bend in wrong angles to push him down on his knees. Black dots began to dance in front of his eyes, and he was no longer sure whether he was still screaming or not.

A face appeared in his field of vision, swimming among the throbbing pain. “Since you like to play with your wings so much” laughed Gabriel’s voice, echoing loudly in his ears.

Aziraphale tried to move, to stand up again, to do _anything_. But the smallest of movements made the hold on his wings tighter - he thought he heard Sandalphon’s nasal giggle - and sent sharp pain up and down his back. It was all he could do to clench his jaw and interrupt his own cries.

The archangel’s voice spoke again, this time without any form of amusement. “You’ve made us lose enough time with your pitiful show of rebellion. We’re on a tight schedule.”

Through his painful haze, Aziraphale saw Gabriel raise his hand, about to send them all up to Heaven.

But he never had the chance to complete the miracle, because a tall barrier of fire snaked in front of him, seemingly appearing out of thin air.

Gabriel shrieked in surprise and visibly jumped back, holding his hand to his chest in an attempt to avoid the fire touching it. Aziraphale would have found it a very satisfying sight if his back muscles hadn’t still been burning in agony. Without warning, the wall of fire grew taller and stronger, sending a violent heat wave in his direction. The angel shut his eyes, expecting a painful burning to hit his face. Instead, the wave turned into a warm and gentle caress upon reaching him, leaving him surprisingly unscathed. The same could not be said for Sandalphon, who had apparently been hit at full force and made a sound very similar to Gabriel’s but of several octaves higher, releasing the hold on his wings. Aziraphale lost no time and allowed his hurting wings to fade into the air before stumbling away.

He still felt shards of pain coursing through his body but he was able to push himself on his feet, leaning heavily against a bookshelf. He stared wide-eyed as the column of fire divided itself in half and forced each archangel to retreat to opposite sides of the bookshop. Aziraphale realised in amazement that it had just opened a path for him to cross.

And then it hit him. He observed as flecks of fire warped and twisted within themselves, concentrating in certain particular spots - as close to the archangels as possible - to the point that they almost turned black. As the burning walls grew, they filled the air with distant echoes of screams. This was _hellfire_.

Aziraphale’s heart performed a mad leap in his chest. The only one who would use hellfire to defend him was…

“Angel!” Crowley’s voice rang loudly over the crackling noises of hellfire and the incoherent voices of the other two angels.

And, just like that, Aziraphale forgot everything else around him. His feet began to move towards the demon’s voice on their own, while he frantically searched for his figure through the flames, uncaring of the scorching heat filling up the air around him. His brain barely even registered Gabriel’s attempts at pushing back the tongues of fire with his own power, and his string of threats fell on deaf ears. All his thoughts were for Crowley, how to reach him, how to see him.

Then, as he walked past a bookshelf, there Crowley was. Aziraphale briefly thought that he looked like an apparition, with the light of hellfire casting sharp shadows on his face and his blazing hair rivalling the brightness of the flames. He had his arms raised in front of him, trembling slightly with the strain of maintaining the fire alive, and his features were twisted in concentration. He was not wearing his sunglasses, and the pupils in his eyes were reduced to thin dark slits swimming in a sea of gold. It was a wonderful sight and it was a terrible sight. But Aziraphale did not care about the fury of Hell dancing around the demon, because he was _there._ Crowley was there for him.

He screamed his name across the space separating them, and the twisting flames seemed to open for it, allowing him to move forward. Crowley turned to him and met his eyes, his face immediately brightening up with countless emotions. His gaze never left him as he spoke, “Get out of here, Aziraphale! I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”

As if on cue, a giant wave of angelic power crashed against the hellfire and punched a hole through it for a moment, Gabriel’s tall figure a dark shape among the flames. Crowley doubled over from the effort of keeping the barrier intact, groaning painfully. Aziraphale hurried in his direction, fear and worry giving new life to his aching limbs. He was almost by the demon’s side when the ghost of a memory spoke in his head.

_You’re being ridiculous._

The angel halted mid-step as the image of a different Crowley - and yet one from only hours before - flashed through his eyes, all mocking sneers and harsh words.

The Crowley in front of him was extending a hand to him, instead, a gentle expression on his face despite the lines of pain crossing it. “Please, take my hand, angel. We need to go.”

Hissing voices still whispered in his mind, and Aziraphale was not sure in which Crowley he should believe. But the slender hand reaching out to him felt safe and welcoming, a sharp contrast to the growing inferno around them.

So, Aziraphale took it. His throbbing pain subsided a little when he felt Crowley squeezing his hand tightly. He let the demon guide him out of the shop and into the open air.

✦

The gulp of fresh air was an unimaginable relief, and Aziraphale felt a bit lightheaded as he let his lungs take in as much of it as they could. His eyes fell on the Bentley parked in front of the bookshop, half of it sitting on the sidewalk in a way that would have gotten any other car a handful of fines. He could still feel Crowley’s warm hand around his own, like an anchor in the sea of panic and pain.

He did not know what to say but he opened his mouth anyway, hoping that words would follow the motion. But before he could even try, Crowley pulled him into a sudden hug, properly making any meaningful words vanish from his mind. The demon’s arms were firm and tight around his shoulders, his hold betraying a desperation that made Aziraphale’s heart ache.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Crowley’s words fumbled over one another as he spoke into the angel’s hair, his breath tingling down his neck. Aziraphale hesitated a moment before letting his own hands rest on the other’s back.

“I- I’m alright” He replied shakily, furiously trying to push back tears of relief that were threatening to spill out of his eyes. The demon muttered something unintelligible and nodded in solace, his arms tightening even more around him. Aziraphale buried his face in his shoulder, and if a few tears did escape his feeble control, he ignored them.

Too soon did Crowley break the hug, leaving the angel feeling suddenly very cold. Now that he was out of his embrace, words bubbled up to his lips. “You’re here.”

The incredulity in his tone clearly hit Crowley hard, his features tensing with hurt. He spoke in a low voice, “Of course I am, angel. I heard you call out.”

“I did,” Aziraphale admitted. “But you had said- I, I didn’t really think that-“

“You didn’t think I would come?” His tone was laced with so much pain that it made something clench in Aziraphale’s chest.

He opened his mouth to reply when Crowley winced visibly, stumbling back a few steps.

“Crowley!” The angel reached out to steady him.

“We need to go. _Now_.” Crowley began to move in the direction of the car. “M’not letting the hellfire touch your bookshop so I can’t make it grow any further. Those wankers inside are going to be free very soon.”

Aziraphale sent a worried look at his bookshop. The scorching light from the flames was already beginning to die down, and he could feel the two ethereal essences inside pushing harder and harder. He followed Crowley to the Bentley, and the moment he got into the passenger’s seat, they were already driving off at an impossible speed.

Crowley spoke again only when they left Soho, having put a considerable distance between them and the bookshop. “We need to find a safe place to stay. Beelzebub must’ve realised I’m not in my flat by now, they’ll be looking for me. For us.”

The fear and adrenaline that had fueled Aziraphale up to that point came crashing down on him in the form of exhaustion and great, great frustration. His voice sounded frantic when he asked, “What, what do you mean Beelzebub? What’s going on, Crowley? Why would they be looking for us? Does this have something to do with Heaven coming for me too?”

Crowley’s hand fell gently on his, making his next questions die in his throat before they could push themselves out. The demon had a soft look on his face that sent a calming wave through him, and his agitation subsided to a crackling fire in his chest.

“I’ll explain everything, Aziraphale, I promise. Well, everything I know, at least. But first,” His hand did not move away. “I need you to answer a couple of questions for me, please.”

Aziraphale chocked on his words in disbelief. “I need to answer? I’m completely lost at to what’s going on, how am I-”

“Angel, _please_. I promise I’ll explain, but I- I need to know first.”

“You need to know what?”

Crowley turned to look at him dead in the eye, and Aziraphale had the impression that he was seeing someone other than him. His voice was low, but it carried an immense weight. “Did you call me on the phone yesterday morning?”

“No. No, I didn’t call you in the morning,” Aziraphale was not sure about the point of the question, but he answered plainly like Crowley had asked him. The words seemed to wash the demon in relief, his grip on the steering wheel loosening ever so slightly - Aziraphale hadn’t even noticed how tightly he had been holding it, his knuckles turned white.

He waited a moment to add, “I called you last night, but you didn’t answer. And then,” He took a shaky breath to force the words out. “Then, we didn’t talk until, until I came to your flat, right?”

Crowley’s face dropped. “You came to my flat? You were there?”

Aziraphale was growing more confused by the second, wondering why Crowley’s voice sounded so incredulous. “Well, of course. We talked, Crowley, how could I not have been there?”

The demon suddenly appeared so much smaller as he asked, “What did we talk about?”

“You were there! You should know that.”

 _Please, don’t make me repeat it_ , is what Aziraphale really wanted to say. The memory of Crowley’s mocking grin was still burned in his mind, and the thought that reliving it might bring that expression back on the demon’s face terrified him. He wondered how quickly the sneer would replace the gentle expression that Crowley was wearing now. How long it would take for the Crowley he knew to disappear again under a sea of harsh words and taunting phrases. A chill ran down his spine, and he shifted uncomfortably in the car seat.

The demon read the discomfort on his face in a heartbeat and gave his hand a light squeeze, speaking softly. “Just tell me why you came to my place, angel.”

Aziraphale stared at him for a long while, his brain scrambling to find the words that would hurt the least. “You didn’t show up for the dinner we had planned and, and I became worried that something had happened to you.”

Crowley looked as if he were hearing a story about a stranger, as Aziraphale added, “You said that, well, that you had forgotten about it. And-”

“I didn’t forget about it.” Crowley’s mouth was set in a thin, rigid line. “I would never forget it.”

“It’s what you told me, Crowley.”

The demon’s gaze locked into his own again, and Aziraphale could read anger in it as plain as day. “Listen to me, Aziraphale. That wasn’t me.”

A moment of silence. “You mean that you weren’t yourself?”

“No, I mean that you didn’t see _me_. I never said any of that.”

The angel could feel a headache threatening to burst. “Crowley, I don’t understand. You’re saying that I didn’t actually talk to you?”

The other exhaled slowly and sent him what Aziraphale could only interpret as an apologetic look. “I should’ve warned you right away, angel. I’m sorry.”

Before he could state once more just how confused he was, Crowley continued, “Do you remember the demon I told you about a while ago? The one that the humans call Krampus?”

Aziraphale nodded. “You said they wouldn’t visit Earth this year.”

“Well, they did. They got up here a few days ago, I think. And they,” The hand that had been sitting on top of Aziraphale’s moved away to frantically run through the demon’s red hair, as he hesitated to finish the sentence. “They attacked you, Aziraphale. Used their power on you. And I, I was too late to stop them. Believe me, I would’ve, but they caught me off guard and-”

“The nightmare,” Aziraphale interrupted him, his brain finally making sense of the whispers in his head and the waves of irrational fear. “The one I had the other night. It was them, wasn’t it?”

Crowley was studying his face with wariness, and his heart clenched painfully at the realisation that the demon was afraid of his reaction. He sent him a small smile, reaching over to still his frenzied hand still moving aimlessly around. “Please, don’t blame yourself, my dear. This was never your fault. All I can do is thank you for being here. For saving me once more.”

While Crowley made a series of unintelligible noises - followed by his cheeks hurrying to match the colour of his hair - Aziraphale came to another conclusion. “We never talked in front of your flat. It wasn’t you I spoke to.”

The hurt in the demon’s eyes was enough to let Aziraphale know that he was not the only one to retain a painful memory from that meeting. “I think they tricked us with visions, tried to keep us apart.” He slumped further down his seat. “They might be working with Hell. Or Heaven. Probably both, since the two big bosses thought to come pay us a visit at the same time.”

 _It wasn’t Crowley_ , was the only thought going through Aziraphale’s mind, wiping away all the hissing voices in his head, all the fears and worries that had plagued him throughout the night. It had never been Crowley. The figure that he had been so terrified of seeing again had never been real and, most importantly, had never been the being he held dearest to his heart. He feared his heart might jump right out of his chest with the pang of relief hitting it.

“How did you figure it out?” Aziraphale asked, and the other looked at him quizzically. “How did you realise that all you saw wasn’t real? Why didn’t you believe the visions?”

Crowley’s features morphed into a peculiar expression that left him breathless, a mix of fondness and sorrow, which softened his face but darkened his eyes. “While you thought you were talking to me, I also had a conversation with you, angel. Well, a version of you. He said something to me.” His gaze never left Aziraphale’s face. “You never would have.”

Aziraphale’s heart beat so loudly that he was sure Crowley could hear it, as his chest filled with a warm feeling that now he knew how to name. He looked at the demon in front of him. The demon who had so much _faith_ in him, more than he’d ever had in himself for millennia. The demon who had not wasted a second to come to his aid despite having just been forced into an experience as painful as his, if not more - Aziraphale could only imagine, and he hated the visions that came to mind. The demon who was now listing in a hurry all the options he could come up with to keep them safe, to keep Aziraphale safe. And, as he looked at him, he was no longer afraid or hesitant to speak the words that had been sitting in his mind since the night before. Or, he thought, maybe for longer, much longer.

“I love you.”

Crowley all but jumped in his seat, inadvertently turning the steering wheel and sending the car off the road. Aziraphale squealed in surprise as the Bentley travelled for a couple of seconds on the sidewalk, missing a street lamp by a miracle. A literal miracle, performed by a swearing Crowley, that made the car turn on itself in a way that defied physics and brought it back on the road.

Once they had returned to safely driving in their lane, the demon turned to him wide-eyed, his face of a vivid red and his mouth slightly open. “What?”

Aziraphale’s smile grew wider with amusement. “I said,” He pronounced slowly, “I love you, dearest.”

A sea of emotions flooded Crowley’s face, his golden irises nearly glowing with them, and his mouth slowly but surely stretched into a huge grin. He began to say something, and Aziraphale found that all of his senses were suddenly focused on the demon’s mouth and the words it was about to utter.

Neither of them noticed something flying towards the car window at high speed. Not until it phased right through it and wrapped itself tightly around Crowley’s wrist, pulling a hiss of pain out of him.

Then, the thing - a whip, realised Aziraphale - tugged hard on the demon’s hand and forced him to turn the steering wheel sharply to the side. The Bentley once again went barrelling off the road, directed at a wrought iron fence, but Crowley was too occupied trying to slip out of the whip’s grip to miracle the car back on the street.

Aziraphale barely had time to snap his fingers and teleport both of them out of the vehicle before it went crashing into the fence with an ear-splitting noise.

✦

Crowley found himself standing on the pavement, his head spinning in painful spirals. He stumbled sideways and would have fallen on the ground hadn’t a strong arm been there to hold him up. His vision swam back into focus, and Aziraphale’s worried face appeared in front of him.

“Are you alright, dear?” The angel’s voice rang clear and steady, but his hold on him felt desperately tight.

He tried to send him a smile, but judging from his expression, it did not come out quite the way he wanted. “M’fine, angel. Are you?”

Aziraphale nodded, and his hand slid down Crowley’s arm in a comforting gesture. But the moment fingers brushed the bare skin of his wrist, stinging pain erupted from the point of contact. He inhaled sharply and retracted his arm out of reflex. Aziraphale’s eyes widened in shock as his gaze fell on it. He looked down and was met with the sight of deep red and black burn marks circling around his wrist, making the skin around them swollen and pulsing in pain.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale began to reach over, but another look at the rapidly colouring streaks convinced him against it. “What, what was that? How could it hurt you like that?”

Crowley was tempted to use a miracle to heal himself, but something told him that it would only be a waste of energy. He growled, “Krampus.”

As if summoned, a snapping sound came from over a small hill in the park behind the iron fence. They both whipped around to see its origin, but by the time Crowley could make out an elongated whip stretching towards them, twisting in the air in ways that shouldn’t have been possible, it was already almost upon them. He tried to dive in front of the angel in an attempt to shield him somehow, but Aziraphale was faster.

The whip came flying down but never hit its target, instead bouncing against the outside of a white wing, raised above both of their heads. The demon could taste angelic power tingling in the air as it laced around the protective wing and effectively stopped the weapon in its track. He was about to smile in relief when he caught sight of Aziraphale’s face and his heart dropped to his guts. The angel’s features were twisted in a pained expression, his mouth set into a forced line clearly attempting to repress a cry.

“Angel?” He asked, gently placing both hands on his shoulders. “Angel, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Aziraphale let his wing drop down with a trembling movement, as though suddenly it had become too heavy for him to hold up. One of Crowley’s hands moved to delicately brush the edge of it, his eyes searching for the source of the angel’s pain. He only needed to move aside a few crumpled feathers to see a long and thin black streak cutting through the wing. It wasn’t deep but it should not have been there at all, thought the demon with a jolt of fear. Krampus’s weapon had just broken through an angelic miracle.

He let his hand slide off the wing, worried that he might hurt Aziraphale more. The latter read his expression and mustered up a thin smile of reassurance, while he slowly retreated his wings. “I’m fine, dear, truly.”

An amused voice rose from the top of the hill as a dark figure made themselves visible. The sneer stamped on their face glinted in the early morning light. “Actually you both look like a wreck!”

White hot anger erupted in Crowley’s chest as their voice carried itself across the empty park, filling the air with its malevolent glee. He walked over to the hole opened in the iron fence by the Bentley - he felt a pang of despair at seeing the front of his car utterly destroyed, _again_ \- and gestured to Aziraphale to follow, trying to move away from Krampus’s field of vision. But he soon had to stop dead in his tracks when the other demon miracled themselves halfway down the hill, now staring at both of them with a pitying look.

“Seems to me that you’ve had quite a rough night. Would you like to share?”

The fire in Crowley’s chest so desperately wanted him to jump forward, to land a good punch on Krampus’s face before wiping them away from the face of the Earth. But the image of their blasted whip breaking through Aziraphale’s miracle to the point of hurting him held him back. He ignored the vein of fear snaking through his mind and spitted out, “I should have known you wouldn’t have kept your greedy hands back in Hell where they belong. But enough with your games, you’re done using stolen power.”

Krampus’s face showed no emotion other than a wild amusement. “Stolen? Oh, you have to admit that I make a much better use of it than you and your,” Their eyes flicked in Aziraphale’s direction. “ _Angel_ ever would.”

The word sounded like the worst of insults in their mouth, and Crowley had to close his hands in fists to prevent himself from burning it off. He turned to check on Aziraphale, but the angel’s face betrayed no fear or worry. His eyes, however, were alight with something that dangerously resembled wrath.

Krampus’s focus had switched to the angel too, and their tone turned mocking as they said, “A big fan of your whole ‘being of love’ attitude, by the way.” They brought a hand to their chest in an overly dramatic gesture. “I haven’t felt some energy quite like yours since, well, ever.”

Aziraphale’s features remained unmoving, but Crowley could feel the aura around him growing steadily, ethereal energy twisting around in his fingers. He spoke calmly, and yet the coldness in his voice would have terrified the demon, had he been on the receiving end of it. “We will be leaving. _Now_. And you will let us go,” He set his jaw firmly. “Unless you’d like to experience true angelic power firsthand instead of resorting to stealing it.”

The angel’s hand moved to grab Crowley’s own, already preparing himself to summon a miracle to carry them away. He could only stare at him in amazement. In better circumstances, he would have kissed him right there and then. But, considering the actual circumstances, he limited himself to making sure that a dopey grin hadn’t just appeared on his face for all to see.

However, his sense of triumph died down a little when he looked back at Krampus and saw that their grin had widened even more, now cutting their face in half in a grotesque way. “Adorable” They commented.

And, just as Aziraphale lifted his hand to teleport both of them away, they moved in a flash, almost too fast for Crowley to see, and swung their whip once more. The shorter distance between them now ensured that neither of them would react to it in time. It lodged itself tightly on the angel’s forearm, wrenching a yell of pain out of him and interrupting his miracle. Crowley noticed his eyes going immediately blank, a vision about to implant itself in his brain.

 _Not again_ , was his furious thought as his body acted of its own accord. In a split second, he brought his own wings out - a pitch dark contrast to those Azirapahle had summoned earlier - and drove one of them across the stretched whip. The feathers, made as sharp as razors, cut easily through the weapon, which fell to the ground instantly. He then hurried to remove the bit of it still attached to the angel’s arm, as his eyes slowly regained focus. But, upon taking it in his hand, Crowley noticed something else shifting up and down the texture of the whip. It closely resembled dying flames of a fire, but he recognised it for what it was. Hellfire was wrapped around the weapon, in such a small quantity to hurt an angelic being without destroying them.

And sure enough, the burn marks visible under Aziraphale’s torn clothing were glinting in a sickening dark colour, black veins spreading out from them to form a web of scorching pain. Aziraphale’s muffled cry once he finally managed to pull the rest of the whip off of him made his heart clench painfully. Too late did it occur to him that he could not let the other demon notice the marks, because Heaven and Hell still believed that…

“Oh, my,” Krampus’s voice oozed with satisfaction, and Crowley looked up to see them holding the torn end of their whip, meticulously restoring it out of thin air. “I bet a few stuck-ups Upstairs will be very interested in that.”

The words were all it took to turn the angry fire in Crowley’s chest into a furious inferno, his eyes gleaming threateningly. He only needed a few moments to gather in his hands all the demonic power he could summon, feeling it crackling at his fingertips. He stepped in front of Aziraphale. “You won’t get to tell anyone that.”

The bonds that erupted around Krampus were the strongest he had ever created in his existence, pulling at the demon’s essence and dragging it down into the earth. He infused them with every last bit of his energy, making them strong enough to banish even a being as ancient as them to the pits of Hell. The sneer disappeared from Krampus’s face, and Crowley would have gladly transferred it on his own face if he hadn’t been using all of his concentration to hold them in place. For one moment, he could almost taste the other demon’s panic in the air, as their body began a slow descent into the ground and flashes of demonic power circled around it without emitting any actual light.

Another moment passed, Krampus’s body sank a little further, and Crowley allowed the smallest part of his mind to howl in triumph.

Then, the process stopped. Crowley’s eyes widened in confusion, and he strained to put even more energy into it. But no matter how much of his power was being consumed in the attempt, Krampus was no longer subject to his bonds. And, as soon as they swung their whip around in a wide semicircle, the chains around them fell into nothingness in a matter of seconds. The act made Crowley’s stomach churn and he stumbled back, his legs trembling violently. He found that the energy he had left could barely keep him standing, and he was grateful for Aziraphale’s arm wrapping around his own.

Krampus was still pulling themselves out of the ground, their body scorched in several spots by Crowley’s power but their eyes shining with fury. “You don’t have much to show for all your threats, do you, traitor?” They yelled at him.

Whatever anger the demon’s words stirred in him was immediately washed away by Aziraphale’s hand gently cupping his face. His gaze was captured by the angel’s limpid eyes, now widened in fear. “I can feel other presences coming, Crowley.” He whispered, “Krampus is trying to trap us here until they arrive.”

Crowley let his own consciousness expand over the confines of the park. And there they were, two strong auras getting closer and closer - one angelic, one demonic - their power recognisable from miles away. Fear gripped at his chest, enveloping his mind in a curtain of panic. He desperately tried to come up with a way for them to leave before the full wrath of Heaven and Hell could descend on them, but Krampus was standing up again, an unmoving obstacle preventing them from going anywhere.

Their voice sounded raucous when they spoke, but it still carried loud and powerful. “You two lovers really shouldn’t have let me take that much from you.”

Aziraphale’s hand slowly dropped from his face as he turned around to face Krampus. His expression was once again devoid of any visible emotion, but Crowley knew how to read his angel and did not miss the tinge of resolution in his gaze.

“Your emotions are so obvious, so _easy_ to take!” The demon was now rambling, lost in the sense of victory that escaping Crowley’s hold had given them. “I could tear them all away from you in a heartbeat.”

“Then take them.”

Crowey turned around wide-eyed to make sure that it had really been Aziraphale talking. He hissed, “Angel, what are you saying?”

Aziraphale ignored his question, his complete focus on Krampus. “You said you could so easily take them all. So, why don’t you?”

The other demon’s smile wavered a little in confusion, and they remained quiet. The angel did not lose time and continued, “You haven’t stopped gloating about how easy it’s been for you to steal away power for yourself, how pathetically simple it would be to take everything from us. And yet, you still haven’t done it. One might think that you were lying about it.”

Crowley’s jaw dropped a little, his brain struggling to believe that such words had truly come out of Aziraphale’s mouth. He stepped closer to him, but the angel sent him a meaningful look. He knew what that look meant. _I know what I’m doing_.

Krampus laughed sonorously, but they sounded uncertain. “I’ve already done it, principality. What, you want another go at it?”

A mischievous glint flashed in Aziraphale’s eyes. “You’ve always hit us from behind so far. Are you truly capable of doing the same while we’re aware of it?”

Crowley recognised the tone as the one he had used countless times in the past to influence unknowing humans. He could have sworn that the angel was tempting Krampus. Hitting him right in their pride, where it hurt the most.

“Are you really so desperate to lose all those precious feelings of yours?” The demon was shouting now.

“I’m only challenging you to prove yourself.” He seemed to be almost smirking. “But maybe you’re too afraid you will not succeed.”

With that last sentence, Krampus’s face twisted in a mask of fury. Their whip was flying before Crowley could even register them swinging it, and without fail it landed on Aziraphale’s arm again, a piercing snap echoing through the park. Aziraphale inhaled sharply but did not flinch, instead keeping his gaze fixed on the other demon.

In a flash, Crowley was by his side, ready to wrench the weapon off of him. But his other hand raised ever so slightly from his side, a silent gesture visible only to the demon asking for him to wait. He looked desperately at the angel, his mind screaming with the desire to help him, to shield him away from this and more. But he could feel Aziraphale pleading him to trust him, and when had he ever left his pleads unanswered? So, he let his hand drop by his side in a slow and oh, so painful movement.

Krampus was far too focused on taking as much as they could to notice his gesture, their sickeningly yellow eyes opened in a morbid look. Several terrible moments passed in this manner, with the demon’s aura growing with sheer power while Aziraphale appeared to get weaker, his face twisted in pain. And yet, the furrow in his brows was not quite one of pain. In another circumstance, Crowley would have thought it to be a sign of concentration.

Then, just when his heart had begun to beat so hard in his ribcage that he was sure it would jump out at any second, something changed in Krampus’s stance. Their legs started to shake slightly and the hand holding the whip looked frozen in place against their will. They shuffled nervously on their feet and visibly tried to tug the whip away to no avail. The weapon was firmly lodged on Aziraphale’s arm, but now he appeared to be the one keeping it there instead of the demon.

“What the…” murmured Krampus, their eyes shifting wildly in confusion and panic. “What, what is happening? What are you doing?”

They looked straight at Aziraphale, who managed to form a small smile through the pain. “Why so nervous, Krampus? I’m only showing you what it really means to be a ‘being of love’.”

And suddenly, Crowley understood. Krampus was _overwhelmed_. Aziraphale was purposely giving them access to his essence of principality, his immense love for humanity and their creations, the dedication he put in everything he did, the pleasure he derived from the wonders of this world, and, maybe, even his love for… He did not let his mind entertain that thought for more than a moment.

He looked at the other demon and saw pure, undeniable fear in their features. They were frantically trying to remove the whip from Aziraphale, drop it to the ground, anything that would let them escape the ocean of emotions crashing on them. But the weapon did not budge or allow them to move, firmly channelling more power than Krampus could ever handle. Now, Crowley knew what to do.

He swiftly moved closer to Aziraphale, their shoulders pressed against one another, and brought a hand over the tight cord wrapped around his arm. The angel gave him a warning look but he reassured him with a whisper in his ear. “Let me help you, angel.”

Then, his hand closed over it. The point of contact immediately began to burn, and shooting pain coursed through his whole body. His mind was flooded by a sudden sense of panic, and he ignored it, allowing the weapon to tap into the purest love he had. It was a terrifying feeling, but it barely lasted for a few heartbeats. He soon felt the flow of power return to them in waves, as the recipient apparently could not take any more of it.

Crowley raised his eyes and was met with the sight of Krampus’s corporation falling to pieces, unable to contain the extreme level of energy that their demonic essence had reached. Cracks began to open in their face, quickly splitting their dark skin. An invisible fire seemed to run all over them, burning beyond repair anything on its path. The demon turned their eyes to them both, his horizontally slitted pupils reduced to narrow slits.

“Now, I say it is time for you to return to Hell, don’t you think?” intoned Aziraphale, unwrapping the whip from his arm and holding the end of it in one hand.

Krampus attempted to say something, but no sound came out of their mouth. Aziraphale and Crowley drew their hands away from the string of the weapon at the same time, letting it drop to the ground. It faded away in the shadows upon touching the grass. The demon watched it disappear as their corporation followed it suit, being consumed until none of it remained. Their eyes were the last ones to disappear while they were dragged into the earth.

An eerie silence fell on the empty park, now fully bathed in the light of the morning sun. Without Krampus’s body to block his view, Crowley could clearly see two figures standing half a mile away, watching closely.

✦

Never, in his eons of existence, had the archangel Gabriel felt such a consuming anger, the kind that makes hands shake and thoughts turn into a scrambled mess. He wanted to scream in frustration, but he could not lower himself to that level while Beelzebub was standing right next to him. He also wanted to lunge forward and drag the sorry excuse for an angel that was the principality Aziraphale straight to Heaven, but judging from what he had seen, that seemed out of his reach too. So, he resorted to the only thing that he _could_ do at the moment.

He turned to Beelzebub and exclaimed, “You said this would work! That your demon would get the job done! Then, why did I just see those two traitors discorporate them without even _touching_ them?”

Beelzebub’s face was a mask of shock, their mouth hanging slightly open. “I- Krampus had never been discorporated before. They are technically unzzztoppable.”

“Well, your ‘technically’ just made me look like a fool for the second time! This was meant to be our chance to regain control.”

Now, Beelzebub turned to him with a burning gaze. “I think you mean _your_ chance. I have still enough authority over Hell to keep it in order, my order. I don’t need the demon Crowley zzzerved on a silver plate to be sure of it. But you,” Their face opened in a wide grin. “You’d better pray to Her that your precious angels weren’t watching thizzz.”

And, without another word, they were gone, leaving only a few lazy flies in their place. Now seemed like a perfectly good time to scream in frustration, thought Gabriel as he felt his insides burn with rage.

But suddenly a voice yelled from the side. “Why so glum, Gabriel boy? Are you not having a good day?”

His head whipped around to see the demon Crowley staring at him with a wide smirk, not dissimilar from the one Beelzebub had thrown at him. Behind him, Aziraphale watched with a satisfied smile and just a tinge of amusement.

So, screaming in frustration was out of the question, again. Gabriel settled on responding with a look that he hoped appeared frightening and miracling himself away from that damned park.

He truly did hate Earth.

✦

Crowley and Aziraphale spent the entire ride back to the bookshop in silence, each trying to regain enough energy to stay awake and come to terms with their racing thoughts. But their hands were firmly intertwined the whole time, neither of them willing to let go of the other for a second. They didn’t speak about it, simply enjoyed the warmth and comfort from the point of contact.

Once inside the bookshop, Aziraphale scanned the torn remains of books and shelves, pieces of paper, wood and glass scattered all over the floor. He felt tears climbing on each other, fighting for their way out, and this time he let them. The moment the first tear of exhaustion and relief streaked his cheek, Crowley was already in front of him, a pained look in his wide eyes. He raised a hand slowly to wipe it away, his touch lingering for a few seconds longer than it needed. Aziraphale took advantage of it and leaned into his hand, bringing his own up to cup it in a gentle hold.

He almost expected the demon to pull away, but instead his features relaxed into a soft smile. He shifted to stand beside Aziraphale, although the hand never left its spot on his cheek. The angel felt a lean arm snaking around his shoulders, and the sense of comfort and safety that he derived from it was like nothing he had ever experienced before. He gladly let his whole body press against Crowley’s, wishing for time to stop and trap them in that moment for as long as possible.

“We can fix this, angel.” Crowley spoke softly, his thumb moving to caress Aziraphale’s cheekbone in a soothing motion. “I’ll make sure that everything returns to its former glory, I promise.”

Aziraphale chuckled lightly against his shoulder. “I’ll make sure to remind you that you have spoken of ‘former glory’ the next time you complain about me not wanting to let go of a book.”

“Guilty as charged.” The smile was evident in his voice.

Then, the demon swiftly moved away to return to facing him. Aziraphale had to hold himself back from physically chasing his touch. “Aziraphale, about what you told me in the car before… well, all that.” He waved a hand around nervously.

Aziraphale’s heart skipped a beat. Then another, and another one. It took him a moment to realise that his heart wasn’t actually skipping any beats, but he simply could not hear them over an anxious buzzing noise in his ears.

It seemed like forever before Crowley opened his mouth to continue and an even longer time before words followed the movement. The demon’s voice was low but unwavering. “I love you too, Aziraphale. I very much love you. As much as anyone can love.”

He waited a second before adding. “So, yeah, it’s, you know, mutual.”

Aziraphale blurted out a choked up laughter at that last sentence, while his heart began some quite impressive somersaults in his chest. Tears were threatening to spill again, but Crowley leaning forward to press his lips to Aziraphale’s properly stopped them in their tracks.

The angel was not sure what his mind had envisioned for that first kiss, but whatever it was, this exceeded it wildly. Crowley’s lips were soft and sweet, sending a tingling sensation throughout his face at every slight movement. They were initially gentle and cautious, but as soon as Aziraphale responded in suit, they became more daring, slowly exploring his mouth and prying it open. Crowley’s hand snaked behind his head to cradle his nape and gently pull him closer. They kissed as though they were thirsty travellers finding an oasis in the middle of a desert, with the force and hunger of millennia, pushing themselves closer and closer until it would have made no difference whether they had separate bodies or simply shared one. There was desperation and wild need in it, but as much exhilaration and tenderness that came from finally holding the object of one’s desire.

Aziraphale felt like hours had passed when they finally pulled apart, although it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Crowley’s eyes were shining like fireworks of gold, the bright light from the window making the irises shift and shimmer in a way that the angel could only describe in his head as magnificent. His smile was getting wider by the second as the demon’s expression turned almost giddy with happiness, and Aziraphale knew that he had a very similar grin stamped on his face.

As the demon stepped forward once more to pull him into a tight hug, he murmured in his ear in a low voice that sent shivers down his spine. “Well, now I definitely won’t be able to leave again.”

Aziraphale held him as though he would never release him from the embrace. His smile was so wide it hurt.

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just make our lover boys defeat Krampus with the power of love? Why, yes. Yes, I did. Do I regret it? Absolutely not, it was great. 10/10 would do it again. *"The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis starts playing*
> 
> I just want to thank everyone that's been following and reading this fic and, most importantly, keeping up with my nonexistent posting schedule. I'm rewarding your willingness to bear with my spotty angst with the next and final chapter, I promise.
> 
> And, if you enjoyed this, please consider leaving kudos or screaming into the void of the comments, thank you!


	5. Christmas is here, Bringing good cheer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale's eyes widened in excitement at the sight of the ice skating rink, as though he had just laid eyes on a rare first edition.
> 
> "Oh Crowley, we must try it out!"
> 
> "Well, I'd say 'must' is a bit of an exaggeration."
> 
> "Don't worry, my dear," Aziraphale's voice sounded purposefully innocent. "I'll be there to catch you, should you fall on the ice."
> 
> Now that was an outright challenge. The demon growled and moved to stand in front of him, blocking his path. "I can bloody well skate on the ice without falling on my arse, Aziraphale."
> 
> The angel's smile grew even wider, not even bothering to look innocent anymore. "Why don't you show me, then?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter overflowing with Christmas fluff that is absolutely not necessary for the plot but I threw in anyway, partly because I thought the boys deserved it and also because I wanted to write some Christmas fluff. Yes, I am aware it's not Christmas anymore but you'll have to pry the Christmas spirit away from my dead body. 
> 
> I also want to thank everyone who has been following this story despite the horrendous delay in posting, you have all been added to the Official List of People Who Made Me Cry (Happy Crying).

The door of the bookshop closed behind an angel and a demon in the early hours of the morning, as the faint light of the rising sun painted its newly restored surface in rosy shades, and it only reopened for the intense midday sun rays of the following day.

And during that time, they left the rest of the world behind a hazy curtain, reserving a space for them and them only. A space where they could finally breathe with ease and look at each other for more than a fleeting moment, because this time nobody was coming for them and nothing would try to tear them apart. A space where they could hold each other and touch each other as much as their hearts longed for and close the gap between them again and again. A space where confessions and loving words no longer needed to be whispered or left unspoken, because nobody else was listening anymore.

They were alone. And they were together.

With tender words spoken aloud came other, more painful ones muttered under their breath. Aziraphale found the strength to tell Crowley what the vision had shown him at his flat, and the agonizing burn that the memory left in his mind was slowly wiped away by the demon’s presence, his tight hold on his shoulders, and his soft voice in his ears. He left countless kisses in the angel’s hair and just as many on his lips, and in between one kiss and the next he spoke of how much the moments they had spent together meant to him, promised many lifetimes more of them. And looking into the bottomless pools of his eyes, how could Aziraphale not believe him?

On his part, Crowley was hesitant to repeat what had made him realise the truth about Krampus’s tricks, his voice breaking several times before he could push the words out. When he finally did, Aziraphale was filled with fury and sorrow at the idea of his own voice speaking with such scorn and contempt. He made sure to erase the memory of that tone from the demon’s mind with all the love he could muster, as he whispered to him how much he loved him, how long - he could see it now - he had desired him. And, he told Crowley a thousand times, he loved all of him, every single aspect and part of who he was, more than he had ever loved anything in his existence. Crowley kissed him once more after that, a few tears escaping his eyes.

They also spent hours in silence, simply enveloped in each other’s embrace and slowly convincing their own minds that no more nightmares were coming their way. Those hours passed with them clinging on to the other’s body, making sure time and time again that this was real, that Aziraphale was truly holding his demon’s hand, that Crowley was actually nestling his face among his angel’s hair, breathing in its scent. Then, even when they were sure of it, one of them would still break the silence to call out to the other and nervously wait for their response. And they both responded every time, without fail.

Sometime through the evening, Aziraphale looked up at Crowley’s face, his eyes glinting despite the pout on his face. “It has grown quite cold in here, don’t you think dear?”

Crowley’s lips left the lightest of touches on his cheek, and he did not even need to look up to recognise the grin stamped on the demon’s face. “Well, we’d better fix that, angel.”

Only a few seconds passed before the space above the coffee table warped in on itself, opening up to deposit a tray of warm pear crisp and two cups filled to the brim with hot chocolate, steam still rising from it.

“The shop down the street won’t miss them, I promise.” Crowley’s voice murmured next to his ear.

Aziraphale sent him a smile that seemed to warm up the room of several degrees.

The door of the bookshop was eventually opened again once Crowley remembered that the Bentley was still sitting outside with its hood horribly bent and its front not dissimilar from the ones that could be seen on cars residing in junkyards. He had miracled the inner motor back to a functioning state in order to get them there, but the outer appearance of the car had lost a good chunk of its original charm.

_Not for much longer_ , thought the demon as he stood in front of it, clapping his hands together and feeling a miracle already tingling at his fingertips. He was suddenly halted by a hand slipping around his elbow, followed by an arm, until the entire Aziraphale was holding onto him. His grip wasn’t particularly tight, but it was solid and firm, slightly different from the relaxed way he’d held him inside the shop.

He chuckled lightly. “I told you, angel. M’not going anywhere.” A silent second passed before he added, “Not without you.”

Aziraphale was quiet for almost a full minute, as Crowley patted swift miracles in the hood of the Bentley. The metal began to straighten itself back to an acceptable shape, with only a few small noises breaking through the bustle of the street. He also made sure to pass a fingertip on every scratch and dent on the car, leaving a shiny intact surface behind.

The angel finally responded as Crowley bent down to inspect the windshield and grinned when he saw that his three-bullet-holes sticker was still firmly stuck on the side window. “I’m only keeping an eye on you, dearest. Just in case.”

Crowley whipped around to face him, their faces only a few centimetres apart. Aziraphale’s eyes were calm and serene, but he did not miss the slight lines of worry around them. He let his arms wrap around the angel’s middle, pulling him even closer.

“Nothing,” he spoke in a low voice, but he tried to infuse as much certainty in it as he could. “Could ever take me away from this, angel. _Nothing_.”

And before Aziraphale could reply, he bent down and kissed him for what could have well been the thousandth time. It still felt as wonderful and comforting as the first time, with Aziraphale’s lips welcoming his without hesitation and feeling like a shard of Heaven on Earth. It was a short kiss and yet they were both breathless at the end of it, smiling giddily at each other in the middle of the busy sidewalk.

Two women walking side by side passed by them just as they were pulling away from each other, and they both gave them a glance that was meant to be subtle but instead was quite obvious. One of them smiled sweetly in their direction, a knowing look on her face that left Crowley surprised. Then, her hand gently intertwined with the other woman’s and they walked away, their joined hands swinging between them.

Many more miracles were bestowed that day, most upon the parts of the bookshop that had been victim to the fury of the archangels. As Aziraphale physically pushed back up the fallen bookshelves while they repaired themselves - the flexing of his arms under the thin material of his shirt did not escape Crowley’s gaze, who ended up being quite distracted for the rest of the afternoon, especially when said shirt sleeves were slowly pulled up almost at shoulder level - Crowley worked to regroup the torn books lying on the ground, breathing their crumpled pages into their previous conditions and reattaching broken covers to them. And, while the shadows of the evening grew longer and longer, the bookshop slowly regained its former glory - Aziraphale made sure to use that exact phrase when they looked with satisfaction at their work, gaining an eye roll from the demon.

The rest of the evening, however, was spent in a very different manner once Crowley noticed the deep black streaks on the inside of Aziraphale’s forearm, a stark memory of their last encounter with Krampus. Just like the painful burns on his wrist, those marks seemed to be immune to miracles, solidly engraved on their skin and already on their way to turn into scars. Neither of them could take that reminder away from the other, but, Crowley thought while drawing gentle circles on Aziraphale’s arm with his fingers, they could at least bear it together, much like the humans were used to doing.

So, that night they gave another human tradition a try, one that the angel called “kissing it better”. He raised Crowley’s hand to his face and pressed a light kiss, no heavier than a breath, on the red burns travelling around the wrist. Then, he pressed another one on a different spot. And another one. With each kiss, Crowley could have sworn he felt love seeping through his lips, soothing the sting of the wounds and making his entire arm tingle in a delightful way. He could have also sworn that he had never loved the angel more.

He did the same once Aziraphale had left a trail of kisses around his wrist and all the way to his elbow, each of them burning like the hottest fire and yet feeling as soothing on his skin as a stream of fresh water. As soon as the angel’s lips lifted from his arm, he was quick to lead him backward on the sofa until he was laying on his back. He snaked on top of him, taking in the sight of Aziraphale’s flushed face and his eyes shining like twin stars, so limpid he could have gotten lost in them. He left one soft kiss on his mouth before raising Aziraphale’s arm and letting his lips travel the entire length of the ugly burn on his skin, kissing every ridge in the wounded skin, every turn of the dark streaks extending along the forearm. He felt the angel sigh under him and he smiled against his skin, hoping that he could feel the adoration for him that he was imparting on every single movement and touch. Judging from the way he was wiggling under him, it seemed that he could.

They spent that night adoring and worshipping each other, kissing the pain away from each other’s body and showing just how much they could love. When Aziraphale delicately pushed Crowley off and took him by the hand, leading him up the stairs to a bed that hadn’t been there moments ago, they showed it even more, giving and taking pleasure. They murmured and shouted the other’s name in delight, as Crowley broke his angel apart in all the best ways and Aziraphale made it the most pleasurable thing he had ever done.

That night they built their own corner of heaven.

✦

A white curtain had fallen on the window glass when Aziraphale opened his eyes, squinting a little to get used to the sudden burst of light. Once his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he could make out heavy snowflakes piling up on the windowsill, forming shapeless lumps of snow that were slowly crawling up the surface of the glass. The sight of it made a shiver run down his spine, but his brain, still enveloped in tendrils of sleep, distantly registered a steady warmth enveloping him. A few more moments passed, and Aziraphale realised that he was wrapped in Crowley’s arms, one pressed under his shoulder and the other laying softly on his side. The demon was facing him, his features smoothened out as he breathed quietly. He was the most beautiful sight that Aziraphale had ever laid eyes on, and he was almost overwhelmed by the wave of affection hitting him square in the chest.

He placed a delicate hand on his face, stroking his cheek in a soothing motion before slowly pushing himself up. The movement made Crowley stir, and he turned on his back, groaning a little as sleep escaped him. Aziraphale waited for his eyes to flutter open before saying, “Good morning, my dear.”

Crowley took a moment to focus his eyes on him, and then a small grin opened on his face. “‘Morning, angel.”

They stayed like that for a few seconds, simply staring at each other and smiling sweetly. The moment was broken when the demon grimaced and complained, “My arm’s asleep.”

“Well then, you should find a more comfortable position to sleep in.”

“You fell asleep on it! What was I supposed to do? Couldn’t wake you up.” Crowley retorted in an overly dramatic tone.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but he could feel a smile playing on his lips. He turned to look again at the quickly falling snow, carried around by the wind in a swirling dance. A thought popped in his head.

“It’s Christmas Eve today.” He declared excitedly. “We should go celebrate.”

“M’not very big on the whole Christmas celebration, angel. You know that.”

“Oh, but you did help me put up the lights in the bookshop,” he replied, sending him a knowing look. “So, you’ve already taken part in the celebrations.”

Crowley flopped back onto the bed, groaning. Aziraphale continued relentlessly, “It seems only fair that we should complete the whole affair by going out to honour the Christmas holiday tonight. After all, it is part of the whole human package, isn’t it?”

Crowley pushed himself on his elbows to throw him a dirty look. It just came out as a peculiarly fond one. “How dare you use my own words against me?”

He only replied with a sweet, innocent smile.

“Fine, fine.” The demon conceded, and Aziraphale sat back on the bed to stamp a kiss on his cheek as thanks. The other’s face reddened violently, and several unintelligible noises escaped his mouth as he brought a hand to his cheek.

Then, just as suddenly, his golden irises were on Aziraphale, pinning him down. “I do believe they’re still waiting for us at the Ritz.”

The angel did not have time to form a reply before Crowley’s lips fell on his.

✦

The staff at the Ritz were big fans of the Christmas holidays, as it became starkly clear when Aziraphale and Crowley walked through the entrance and were met with the sight of two imposing Christmas trees, heavy with lights and decorations, standing on each side of the door. The chandelier on the ceiling had also been transformed for the occasion, now dripping with red and gold ornaments and shining more brightly than usual thanks to the strings of lights crisscrossing its surface. Even from there, Crowley could easily spot more decorations sporting the same colours placed at the centre of every table.

He would have probably made an unpleasant comment in his head about the excessive display hadn’t his gaze fallen on Aziraphale. The angel’s face was glowing in delight, his eyes darting around to catch every detail and his mouth stretched in an unconscious smile. A contagious smile, thought Crowley with fondness, as he felt his own face mirror the expression.

In fact, it was so contagious that he maintained it even as the waiter who had led them to their table began listing the various dishes of their Special Christmas Menu, each of them exhibiting a holiday-themed wordplay of dubious taste. He did, however, interrupt him before he could finish listing the first courses and pass on to the second ones, as he breathed a mental sigh of relief. The twinkle in Aziraphale’s eyes at the mention of the courses was more than enough to convince him to order the entire menu and send the satisfied waiter on his way.

Then, it was just the two of them at that overly decorated table, sitting much closer to each other than the initial table setting had anticipated. Aziraphale leaned slightly to the side, and their shoulders bumped. Neither of them moved away.

It was just the two of them, leaning on each other as they had done since the Beginning, while a soft tune played from the piano on the other side of the room. Crowley easily recognised it as _Silent Night_ , and he thought that the night had indeed fallen silent, with every other noise being drowned out by the magnitude of the angel’s presence. His shoulder against Crowley’s, his hand moving gently to catch his own, his hair tingling his cheek.

It was just the two of them, and the rest of the world watched in silence. For a fleeting moment, Crowley’s mind replaced the vision in front of his eyes with another one from many months ago, with the same table at the same restaurant and a similar tune rising up from the piano. But something was deeply different, as he recalled a gap between him and Aziraphale, filled with uncertainty and tacit questions. He vowed to never allow that gap to open again.

He gave a small squeeze to the angel’s hand. “You know angel, if all the past Christmas Eves had been like this, I might have actually become a fan of the holiday.” He noticed the amused smirk on the other’s face and quickly added, “I said _might_.”

Aziraphale returned the squeeze, his smirk softening into a fond smile. “Then I will make sure to take care of it for all the future Christmas Eves.”

Something warm and radiant grew in his chest at the thought of having future Christmas Eves to pass with Aziraphale, of being gifted with so much _time_ with Aziraphale that there would be a next Christmas Eve to pass like this, and then another one, and another one after that. Maybe - and only _maybe_ , his brain specified stubbornly - he understood a bit of the charm that the humans found in this holiday.

They did not have to wait long before the food was brought to their table, in a long series of appetizers, main courses and desserts following one another at a surprising speed. Aziraphale tasted and visibly appreciated every single one of them, while Crowley nibbled at a few appetizers but appreciated the sight of his angel much more than anything on the table.

And, as the evening went by, it did not matter one bit that the waiter had taken to pronouncing the name of each dish in a solemn tone before laying it on the table - Aziraphale had read Crowley’s expression after the announcement of the fifth dish and failed miserably at hiding his giggle of amusement - or that the snow outside had accumulated in enormous lumps on the street, which did not make exiting the restaurant at all a very appealing prospect.

Crowley was with Aziraphale, their hands tightly intertwined under the edge of the table, and the promise of thousands more Christmas Eves hung between them like the brightest of lights.

✦

Stepping outside the restaurant felt very similar to being slapped in the face, with the steely winter air hitting their faces in a rush and stealing their breath. Aziraphale’s cheeks immediately coloured of a vivid red, and his nose followed soon after. He wiggled his nose in annoyance at that, while Crowley stepped right into a puddle of melted snow without even noticing, too busy watching the angel with a big grin stamped on his face. He still did not notice when his foot came back up dripping wet, the thin material of his boot having clearly lost its battle against the snow, because Aziraphale was now rubbing his nose with the palm of his hand in an attempt to warm it up.

After a few minutes, Aziraphale settled on clapping his hands, which were instantly wrapped in soft white and blue wool gloves. He caught Crowley’s puzzled look and said, “I bought them after that dreadful snow storm that lasted a week. I knew they would be useful again soon.”

Then, his hand fished in one of the pockets of his coat, returning with another pair of similar gloves, tinged in shades of red and black. “And,” he added, in a smaller voice. “I bought these too. You did seem awfully cold during that time, so I thought I’d find a pair for you as well.”

Crowley remained quiet for a solid minute, his eyes glued on the gloves that Aziraphale had bought for him. Not because he’d asked or to honour a specific occasion, just because he had thought about him while shopping for his own and hadn’t wanted him to get cold. His eyes began a furious blinking dance in an attempt to push back emotional tears, and he extended his hands to receive the gloves. He slipped them on and was surprised at how well they fit him, wrapping his hands in warmth without being too constricting and allowing him to fully stretch his fingers inside.

“I,” he wasn’t sure what to say. He only knew that he wanted Aziraphale to know just how much that small pair of winter gloves meant to him. “I love them, angel. I really do.”

And he did not lie. The gloves clashed terribly with the slick dark outfit he had put together, complete with a fitting black coat. But they were a pleasant reminder of the angel and the red and black pattern made him smile every time his eyes fell on it. He absolutely _loved_ them for it. Also, he had to admit to himself as he flexed his fingers inside them, they served their function very well.

Aziraphale’s smile could only be described as a beam, to the point that Crowley almost thought that he might begin to glow a little. His voice was as sweet as his kisses when he spoke. “They quite suit you, my dear.”

Then, he grabbed his hand and laughed delightedly as he pulled him along the street with him. The demon thought that his laugh sounded exactly like clear silver bells.

✦

They walked through street after street, following the patterns of colourful Christmas lights adorning the city and the occasional group of carollers singing at the top of their lungs. One time, two separate groups of carollers met on the sidewalk and entered an impromptu singing competition where the goal was apparently to be the loudest of all. Crowley enjoyed the show immensely, a grin plastered on his face, and he stopped a slightly worried Aziraphale from stepping in to calm them down with an amused, “Let them have their fun, angel.”

What Crowley did not expect was for them to happen upon a crowded ice skating rink, clearly visible from the entrance of Hyde Park, and for Aziraphale’s eyes to widen in excitement as though he had just laid eyes on a rare first edition.

“Oh Crowley, we must try it out!”

“Well,” Crowley tried to slowly inch further away from the entrance of the park but was soon stopped by Aziraphale’s tight grip on his hand. “I’d say ‘must’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

“I disagree dear boy, we absolutely must. It is part of the human tradition, after all.”

“A debatable tradition.” He grumbled under his breath, but the angel was already dragging him forward, quickly leading him to the edge of the ice rink. He only turned around once to throw a smirk in his direction, and for a second Crowley didn’t know whether he should have found it annoying or attractive.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” Aziraphale’s voice sounded purposefully innocent. “I’ll be there to catch you, should you fall on the ice.”

Now _that_ was an outright challenge. The demon growled and moved to stand in front of the other, blocking his path. He knew his eyes were glinting with the thrill of the challenge when he said, “I can bloody well skate on the ice without falling on my arse, Aziraphale.”

The angel’s smile grew even wider, not even bothering to look innocent now. “Why don’t you show me, then?”

A few seconds passed where they stared each other down and Crowley resisted the urge to kiss that smile off of him. Then, he was on his way to rent two pairs of ice skates, feeling Aziraphale’s gaze follow his long strides from behind.

The teenager at the stand seemed to have exactly two expressions: placid boredom and a ‘talk to me for more than two seconds and I might just burn this whole place to the ground’ expression. So, he made sure to merely nod in the direction of the rows of ice skates on display and mention the two sizes he was looking for. The teenager seemed grateful for it. He left without a word, and it was a satisfactory interaction on both sides.

In a matter of minutes, him and Aziraphale were both standing at the edge of the ice rink, the blades of the skates hovering over the surface which had lost its smoothness a couple of hundred skaters before. Aziraphale was the first to set foot on it in a painfully slow movement, holding on to Crowley’s hand as though it were a lifeline.

“You seem a little nervous, angel.” He teased him, letting his chin rest on his hand as he leaned onto the railing running around the rink.

Aziraphale threw him an annoyed look. “I do believe it’s been a solid two hundred years since the last time I have ice skated. I think I’m allowed to take my time.”

“Oh, sure you are-” Crowley’s grin was wiped away by the angel’s hand pulling on his, forcing him to step onto the ice as well. He fumbled wildly as soon as his feet touched the slippery surface and lunged at the railing, managing to keep himself up by leaning heavily against it.

“Glad you could join me, dear.”

Crowley turned to look at him wide-eyed. “Are you trying to discorporate me, Aziraphale?”

“Oh don’t be so dramatic,” Aziraphale tried to look casual, although he was gripping the railing and Crowley’s hand just as tightly. “I clearly recall you saying that you could stand without falling.”

“Well, I don’t see you doing any better!”

A couple of other skaters passed by them, throwing amused looks their way, which made whatever response Aziraphale was forming die in his throat. Crowley returned their look with a deep frown of his own, resulting in the child of the group hurrying to skate away. Served him right.

They finally agreed that they needed to let go of the blasted railing and, while Crowley mentally vowed to never take the angel for a walk around Christmas time ever again, Aziraphale gave a small push, making both of them move toward the centre of the ice surface.

As it turned out, holding onto each other’s arm until they formed a single slow-moving mass was the best trick they could come up with to avoid falling miserably on the ice. Crowley’s feet had decided to follow their own path and kept swerving around every few movements, but he stubbornly gripped Aziraphale’s arm and forced them still by planting his heels. By the time they had cut across the length of the rink, he even dared to let his hand slip down to the angel’s own and make his steps slightly wider. Meanwhile, Aziraphale had found his balance and his movements had become stronger and less rigid, pulling the demon along with him in wide circles along the edge of the ice surface.

Once they picked up more speed, Crowley grinned widely. “See, angel? Told you I could bloody well skate.”

Aziraphale did not have time to reply because Crowley’s legs chose that exact moment to forget everything they had just learned in the past several minutes and wobbled violently, making him drop to the ground. He was caught a moment before he could crash on it in an explosion of curses by two strong arms, pulling him back up by the waist.

“And I told you I would catch you, dearest.” Aziraphale’s voice rang in his ear, and he felt his face flush against his will.

But the ice was unforgiving to all, and he soon heard the angel yelp as his feet lost traction, sending him tumbling down in much a similar way to what he had just done. So, they found themselves both sprawled heavily on the ice, clothes getting wet and cold at an alarming rate and the eyes of half of the people present on them. Although the eyes did not stay on for long, as soon as Crowley directed his flaming gaze at them. A baby started crying, and he considered himself satisfied.

Aziraphale let out an annoyed huff, and Crowley turned to look at him with a smile despite the embarrassment, taking in his red cheeks and bright eyes, shining under the glow of the Christmas lights above them.

“You know,” he brought a hand to rest on the angel’s face. “I’m fine with sitting here instead of moving around on these blessed things.” He pointed a hand at the ice skates on his feet.

Aziraphale laughed a little. “I admit that the standards for ice skating might have changed slightly since the last time I tried. But we can’t just sit on the ice.” He waited a second before pouting. “It’s awfully cold.”

Crowley waved in the direction of the railing behind them, which was looking once again very inviting. “What do you say about that, then?”

It took several tries to get back on their feet - including two offers to help from a couple that were nicely refused by Aziraphale before Crowley could scare them off too - but they managed to wobble their way to the railing, blissfully gripping it. Aziraphale looked quite disappointed at his failed ice skating attempt, but a soft kiss on the cheek from the demon was more than enough to bring a bright smile on his face. He turned around and returned the kiss on the other’s lips.

And so they remained for a while longer, leaning against the railing and admiring the show of lights above the ice rink. They glinted in shades of white and gold and snaked around in fast movements, casting shifting shadows on the skaters’ faces and on the clear icy surface. Their eyes followed the rest of the people moving around, and Crowley snorted loudly when a kid crashed into his mother’s legs, creating a domino effect of falling adults. Aziraphale slapped him a little on the shoulder in what was meant to be a reproaching gesture, although he was also trying to hide his own laughter.

The cold bite of the wind did nothing to foul their mood, as Crowley wrapped a wam arm around the angel’s shoulder and he cuddled closer, snaking his own around the other’s waist. They were once again in their own corner, simply relishing in each other’s presence and listening to their heartbeats dance in unison. The music blaring from the speakers and the jumble of voices fell slowly silent, and there were only their bodies pressed to one another and their breaths forming similar white clouds in the chilled air.

Aziraphale shifted around to stare into Crowley’s eyes, a sweet smile playing on his lips. The demon stared back at him with a smile of his own, and they both thought that the other was just about the most wonderful sight they had ever seen.

“Merry Christmas, Crowley”

Both smiles grew wider and brighter.

“Merry Christmas, Aziraphale.”

They kissed once more, and it was the best kiss that the night of Christmas Eve would see that year, while the world and humanity flowed by them like a quiet river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've come to the end! 
> 
> Once again (and this is the last time I promise), thank you so much for reading this and sticking with it till the end. I hope you enjoyed the story, the angst, and the fluff that hopefully helped with some of the angst. It's been a pleasure to write this and try my hand at multi-chapter writing for the first time, and I hope to see you all again for the next crazy idea that comes in my head. If you did not curse my spotty posting schedule even once, you've earned the title of True Hero (physical trophy not provided, this author is broke).


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